A Game Serves Needs of Young and Old

They may be decades apart in age, but kids from the local Boys and Girls Club and members of the senior center next door had no trouble Thursday understanding each other’s serves, slams and spins.

About 50 fans gathered to watch 18 players participate in the Fullerton Senior Multi-Service Center’s fourth annual Bridging the Gap Ping-Pong Tournament.

This year’s event featured an added attraction: doubles, with each team made up of a youngster and an elder.

In the past, the youngsters played against the seniors and the seniors always won. This time, 15-year-old Kenneth Adoo won the singles competition and 11-year-old Kyle Barner and 66-year-old Nelson Lowe won the doubles game.

“The kid’s good,” Lowe said about Barner.

Barner returned the compliment, and the two shook hands as they congratulated themselves.

“That was fun,” Barner said, adding that he didn’t expect seniors could play so well because of their age. “But, they’re good. They’re real good.”

That sentiment, organizers said, sums up the purpose of the event.

“It shows the younger people that the older people aren’t chair-bound and decrepit and that they’re still lively and healthy and even competitive,” Marcia Taylor, the center’s program coordinator, said.

Jay Williams, 69, who organized the neighborhood tournament as a friendly competition, agreed: “It gives them a chance to realize that older people are human too. Kids hardly ever even look at older people but, here, they accept us because in Ping-Pong there is no age limit.”