My Bucky Bell Story
Before I tell my Bucky Bell story, may I first say I would not refer to Bucky as one of the greatest players of the near past. Though he was truly a very strong player, he could not beat his road partner, Gary "Bushwhacker" Nolan.
He was and if still alive (I do not know) no doubt still is one of the best "woofers" in the game. He was a Kentucky boy I think (maybe Tennessee?) I'm not sure? Nick Varner or Gary Nolan would know for certain.
Bucky would play anyone and was not afraid to bet the big money. He wore these big lense glasses that sat high on his nose and they were prescribed for the pool table distance. I swear the lenses were as round in circumfrance as a baseball.
I watched him play the late great Harry "Poochy" Sexton in Flint, Michigan for $100.00 a game. I remember he played lots of safetys on Poochy but in the end Poochy busted him, something not at all uncommon for Poochy to do to road players who came to his pool room looking for action. A couple of years later, I saw him in Midland Michigan playing in a bar box tournament at the Holiday Inn, sponsored by big Ted, owner of Frick"s, a very popular bar in Midland with ten seven footers. He was with Gary Nolan at the time and was woofing hard at the late great "Cornbread Red" Burge. Apparently Cornbread had beat him out of some big money earlier playing one pocket. Not unusual for Cornbread was one of the greatest one pocket players of all time.
They woofed at each other in their Kentucky accents for an hour with Cornbread wanting to play Bucky another round of one pocket for $6,000.00 and Cornbread showed Bucky the money. Bucky wanted no part of it. Instead he wanted Cornbread to put up the same amount and play nineball. Cornbread would have none of that either. They came pretty close to fisticuffs as a result of the choice words they chose to refer to each other but that never happened, nor did they match up.
The best person to share stories about Bucky would be Gary Nolan.
Lastly, I know as a fact, though I was not there to witness, that Bucky gave Johnny Kuchero, Jesse Bowman's teen age mentor the wild eight. Kuchero broke him.
Cross Side Larry
"Learn from the best,, and beat the rest"