Journalists are great givers of advice. It’s a fairly regular part of the job that we pore through a report or interview an expert on some topic — say health or finances or gardening — then crank out an article that we hope readers will find useful.
In March’s issue, for instance, I wrote an article about the increase in pickleball injuries among older players and some common-sense steps to avoid them — things like warming up, using the right equipment and, most of all, treating the sport like a game to be enjoyed rather than a must-win-at-all-costs contest.
I knew the article wasn’t relevant to me. I pride myself on getting to the gym regularly, haven’t even enrolled in Medicare yet (four months to go!) and have played enough sports to consider myself above average in physical coordination.
Plus, I don’t play pickleball.
Then I visited my niece’s ritzy athletic club in downtown Chicago and we decided on a friendly game of — you guessed it — pickleball. Not to brag, but I was beating her like a drum when I lunged after a ball and crashed to the ground. I popped back up and for a time, felt no ill effects.
But in one fell swoop (an excellent description of my tumble), I had actually turned my ankle, sprained my wrist and skinned one knee.
I’d like to blame the new brand of athletic shoes I was wearing at the time, but in truth, I should have just let my niece’s shot go by.
As it turned out, the fall wasn’t the most traumatic episode of our trip to Chicago. Later that same night, as I hobbled across a dark street, I heard a loud “whoa,” felt a rush of air and then had the back of my turned ankle clipped by one of those motorized bicycles tearing down the street without its lights on. Had I left the curb a half-second later, I believe I would have been hospitalized or worse.
So I’d like to offer a little more advice: Look both ways before you cross the street. Seems like I’ve heard that before.
