By Setarreh Massihzadegan
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Years after he first picked up a ping-pong paddle as a teenager, Bernard Peavey has won Linden Ponds first annual Table Tennis Tournament this past summer.

“It was a very exciting match, very close and down to the last two points,” Peavey recalls.

New plays
The tournament was first made possible by community members who asked for the brand new ping-pong table and paddles earlier this year—and got their wish.

Ruth and Gus Diezemann, who moved to Linden Ponds in March, were frequent players at their previous home and had expressed concerns to staff that there wasn’t a table on campus.

“When we talked about it before, they said everything is resident-run,” Ruth Diezemann says. “And so I immediately found that there were others who were interested in ping-pong, and [Linden Ponds staff] responded very nicely and they bought a ping-pong table.”

Soon after, Diezemann posted a sign-up sheet on one of the bulletin boards and amassed about 30 names of people who wanted to play.

“It was quite exciting,” she says. “It just took off. We’re only here about six months and so you can see how quickly things can happen if there’s an interest. It’s just a wonderful place.”

Close game
The tournament was the idea of Joseph Trubiano, who thought the event would be a good way to ascertain the skill levels of willing players. Trubiano asked players to rate their level and then he drew names to decide who would play whom.

As the tournament wound down, from 32 participants to the last two, the final match just happened to be Gus Diezemann and Bernard Peavey.

“The two of them were very, very well matched, so we didn’t know what the  final outcome would be,” Ruth Diezemann says.