This growing game of pickleball sounds pretty fun

Pickleball, invented in the state of Washington, is catching on around the country, so I’m told. Podiatrist Ezra J. Dottino said last week that he is one who has tried it and likes it very much.

“There are pickle ball courts in Orange, not far from where I live,” he said. “The first time my girlfriend and I drove by there, the courts were all but deserted. Last week when we went there again the place was swarming with players. You had to wait to get a court.’’

Dottino, originally from Queens, N.Y. is in practice with Dr. McHugh and Associates, P.C. on Kennedy Drive in Torrington. For many years, I had my feet treated by friend Dr. Rob Crovo but Crovo, who was also the city’s tax collector, retired from his foot-care practice and I went with the McHugh group.

Like all the good ones who deal with the physical well-being of people, Dottino, when time allows, likes chit-chatting while he works. It relaxes people, some of whom can’t bear to have anyone touch their feet. Me? I’m a blabbermouth, so we got along from the start.

Dottino is slim, with an easy smile and he has the athletic look of a man who would be as much at home on any kind of court, including pickleball, as he is on the back of one of the 10 horses he boards and cares for on his downstate property.

Another day, I’ll be chatting up Dottino and then give him the full treatment in a column, but this morning, other things, particularly pickleball, are on my mind.

Before this, I remember only vague references to the game; never really paid attention and didn’t care. But after the office conversation my curiosity jumped. Tennis, badminton, paddle ball and table tennis are all played over (or into) a net. I enjoy tennis but hardly ever played it and I never in my life held a paddle ball racquet in my hand. Badminton and ping pong (table tennis) were my meat; not that I was great or even very good. I simply enjoyed the two games.

Another “net game” with an odd, even comical name like pickleball? Hmmm. I went to the Internet.

The story goes that in 1965, one Joel Pritchard, after playing golf at a