SEGMENT: PING PONG AGE 12
I was living on the ranch and there were no friends nearby. I had to play around with the cows and goats. One day I saw a picture of a Ping Pong table on the cover of Scientific Magazine with instructions how to build a Ping Pong Table. I had all the tools. It took a while and I put the table against the barn wall to play. There was no one around to play with me so I had to play alone against myself. I practiced every day for over a year and was able to serve in high speed and return bounced from the barn wall.
I was asked to borrow the ping pong table by a freind having a birthday party in Petaluma. We moved the table in our pickup. We installed the table at a friends house where the party was to take place. That night the birthday party took place and everyone enjoyed playing ping pong on my table. The next day I went to the house that had the party and the owner's Son asked why I was taking the table. I told him it was mine and started to move the table. He stopped me and said that was his Father's table and I had to leave it alone. We started to argue and I said to him, I would play a game of ping pong with him and the winner kept the table. He was happy because he was about 17 years old and I was only 12 years old. We started to play and I gained 6 points to his '0', I won! He was upset but helped me carry the table down to our pickup where my Father was waiting for me. That was the beginning of my domination of ping pong games for ever!
One day when I was in the 7th grade the school put in a Ping Pong table to play during lunch. I played every day and never lost a game. Even up to my Senior Year in high school I never lost a game, maybe one or two but hardly lost. Even in the Navy, I won the U.S. Navy Ping Pong championship against the Japanese Naval Base in Yokosuka, Japan in 1957 that was against our U.S. Naval Carrier, I won my part!
MY ORIGINAL PING PONG PADDEL
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