The Roswell Pickleball Boom

Lyrics

You hear that?
That’s not the wind in the pines.
That’s not the traffic on Holcomb Bridge.
That’s the sound of Saturday morning.

Used to be six courts for tennis.
Green felt balls, a high net, a quiet grunt.
Now look.
The lines are all different.
A kitchen in the middle of everything.
Nets dropped low.
Some time after 2020, the whole world changed.
Started with a whisper, then a petition nobody remembers who started.
Next thing you know, the parking lot’s full by seven-forty-five.

East Roswell Park, eight in the morning!
The new sound of the suburbs.
It’s a dink, it’s a drive, it’s a third-shot drop.
Yeah, we painted over the old lines.
This is the pickleball capital now.
Welcome to the boom.

Funny name for a sport, right?
Comes from some island way out west.
A dog named Pickles, back in 1965.
Chasing a plastic wiffle ball.
And here we are.
Composite paddles in every trunk.
A whole subculture built on a hollow ball with holes in it.
From Bainbridge Island to the Chattahoochee.
Who knew?

East Roswell Park, eight in the morning!
The new sound of the suburbs.
It’s a dink, it’s a drive, it’s a third-shot drop.
Yeah, we painted over the old lines.
This is the pickleball capital now.
Welcome to the boom.

They say it’s for seniors.
Look again.
Knees braced, fast hands, a competitive streak a mile wide.
From the high school kids to the retirees.
It’s the great equalizer.
The new town square is twenty-two feet wide.
And we’re all here.
Smell of cut grass and focus.

"Yours!"
"Got it!"
"Good shot!"
The Roswell boom.
Yeah. Unofficial state capital.
Game.