Of Cheers, Mayberry, and Pickleball

 Edition 2. Issue 2.

 

Of Cheers, Mayberry, and Pickleball

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away?

Most of us came here to do just that…get away…from our former life. The Stephens Valley development team promised us a community where people can live more easily in harmony with nature, while preserving that natural beauty which surrounds us along the Natchez Trace Parkway, and we liked that idea. Their bold intentions are slowly unfolding as the development team minds their stated mission, and, at the same time, their fiscal bottom line. Meanwhile, the mission of the residents is a little different. We are looking to live in harmony with the environment, but we also seek to live in harmony with each other.

We long for the Mayberry qualities we fell in love with as we watched The Andy Griffith Show and Cheers all those years ago. For many of us, we seek out new friends and relationships to replace those we left behind when we left a former life. The builders of our homes have graced us with some of the architectural elements necessary to build relationships and community. We have big front porches that are close to wide sidewalks, and those elements encourage conversation and engagement with neighbors, but those engagements are not automatic. We residents must put in a little work to turn proximity into family relationships. We can use those sidewalks and become pedestrians more than we do.  Giving ourselves the opportunity to encounter each other and become friends is central to our goals for living in Stephens Valley. While we know we cannot achieve that closeness fully until the town square is a reality, which will give us better walking destinations, it is quite amazing how we can generate some of those qualities on our own – without the help of the development team.

Without a town square destination, the residents are still finding reasons to walk – sometimes just to enjoy nature and architecture, but other times with a destination in mind. Residents walk to the homes of neighbors for social events and to play games, like Mahjong. Many residents also walk to the pool and the racket sports courts. And it is suspected that the residents involved in those activities are learning how to play the games, but mostly they are learning about their neighbors, and those neighbors are becoming great friends.

The Mahjong group consists of a dozen, or so, mostly women, who find the game interesting and fun, on the surface. However, just under the surface, they all realize that the most fun is in turning neighbors into friends who enjoy each other’s company. They like to hang out. The pickleball group likes to walk to a destination too – the Stephens Valley pickleball court. It is fair to say that less than a year ago, few of them (there are about a dozen regulars) had ever been on a pickleball court. Now, most of them play about ten hours per week! Their average age is a bit north of what one would consider the sweet spot for athleticism. Although they keep score, they do not dwell on it, nor do they long remember who won. I’m quite certain the Mahjong group is the same way. There have been injuries and certain healthcare providers have been involved in their pickleball addiction. But they too are learning that the gang that populated the bar in Cheers wasn’t there simply to get hydrated. Rather, they loved the community and the people in it. So it is with the Stephens Valley pickleball crew. They show up to play pickleball, but that is just on the surface. They really show up because of the others who show up. They regularly welcome new attendees that have never played pickleball before, and they suspend games to render impromptu clinics to transfer their “vast” knowledge of the game to those neighbors. They spend more time laughing, joking, trash-talking, and becoming friends, than they ever spend hitting pickleballs. They come at the regular times, even when injured and unable to play. They have just as much fun on the sidelines cracking wise with the players, as they do actually playing. They accomplish the goal of building community either way.

It just might be that we make more progress by seeking out these new connections to each other, that we will ever accomplish by lobbying, cajoling, or begging the development team to make progress for us. But, while we are awaiting more progress from the SV development team, we are learning to develop community on our own, and if you are not yet involved in these community building activities, then you should be, because…  

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name

From the Cheers theme song by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart-Angelo