A bit on topic then on to a bit of silliness! When I played nightly and usually for hours, I simply used minimum effort. I logged three weeks twice in my years of heavy play. Every week I logged over sixty hours, sometimes over eighty, actually on a table or gambling, not just at the hall.
A typical gambling session ran six to twelve hours and a few went thirty-six hours, one forty-eight. All this on the natch. With this much time on the pool table I often played shape for minimum effort and slid sideways on the pool table or was directly against it so I had to take a half step back to shoot. Not what I would do for a table length cut the peach fuzz off of the ball cut shot, just typical shots. It was about saving effort and conserving energy more than perfect stance. Playing full time hours and then some I recognized what was good enough stance. I stepped into the shot, I stepped back from the table, whatever. For a really tough shot I normally stepped into the shot from back away from the table and positioned my feet carefully.
From here down is a skate boarding story. Off topic and those not wanting a little light entertainment should stop here, no pool involved. My mom and I were visiting my brother stationed in Hawaii during his first hitch. Tough duty! He was young and handsome, the girls beautiful and willing. I don't know how he survived two years on the main island!
We were enjoying catching up after not seeing each other for about a year, seeing the sights, and naturally drinking beer. Come Sunday he had something to show me. I had already learned they sold real estate by the frontage inch and made use of every bit of space. Cattle grazed on mountainsides I didn't expect to see anything but maybe a goat on. They built skyscrapers on what looked to have been sidewalk right of ways! Today he took me to a parking lot of a shopping center, closed on Sunday. It might not have qualified as a paved cliff but it was close! At the bottom of the parking lot was a wide entrance and a busy four lane road, no dividers.
My brother pulls out his skate board. Not these modern things. This was early seventies. The skate board was a narrow board not long enough to fit two adult feet on fully and the wheels and carriage were steel, probably seconds that didn't pass for roller skates. Narrow steel wheels on dry bearings.
The idea was we would start at the top of the cliff, um, parking lot, and skate down to the road. He had never actually succeeded! We were working on half a sixpack of twelve ounce beer apiece, one left, so a few scrapes and bruises from jeans and t-shirts being our only protection didn't phase us. Normally we didn't get past thirty or forty feet, the parking lot was far from smooth and those little steel wheels didn't track well. The last of the beer made it seem unimportant that we were destroying what little clothes we had on.
Then it happened, success! I managed to stay up long enough the skateboard was damned near flying, the parking lot bumps and craters weren't affecting the ride I was just hitting the high spots anyway. The noise was tremendous and the wind whipping past my ears glorious! Ha, look at this! I had went down over a hundred yards and only had about half that distance before I got to the road. One more minor detail about these antique skateboards, they weren't big on turning, especially not at forty or fifty miles an hour! Seemed like twice that speed. Two more chances to turn before going into a wall of cars on the highway. One more chance. Definitely a hero move, I forced the skateboard sideways.
I don't know what possibilities of glory there might have been but the skateboard just disappeared! I started flipping, still standing straight. My head hit, my feet hit, my head hit, my feet hit... This happened enough I would have loved to have had it on film. It had to be fit for a world's stupidest video! I was stiff as a board with only head and feet hitting. Finally I slowed down enough that my body started bending and dinging other parts. I stopped about twenty feet from the highway.
I was in the bulletproof mode beer gives you and aside from a foot or two of skin, a few dents rapidly turning to knots on my head, and bruises I was unharmed! We decided on more beer and less(no) skateboarding for the rest of the day. I wasn't going to worry mom or waste my last week ever in Hawaii so I kinda glossed over a little discomfort for a few days. We still had lots more trouble to get into. Fortunately mom was there to provide a little restraint, Hawaii might not have survived two South Louisiana country boys otherwise!
Hu
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