Dear SJM, garczar, and Middle of Nowhere,
Thanks for the correction on the first name. Of course I meant Carl the referee, not the Champagne Eddy. “Middleofnowhere” is nearly right. The family name was not “Zingle” but, I’m pretty sure, “Zingale.”
“Garczar,”. Yes, I am older than dirt. As for “Onofriooooo…” and “was there electricity then,” yes, there was electricity then. It was generated by waterwheels. The wheels turned as the water came over Niagara Falls. The electricity was useful for lighting pool tables in New York City. So much brighter and cleaner than the hissing gas lights. But of course we still weren’t sure that alternating current was really safe.
Lauri’s youth would have been, I imagine, in Greenleaf’s declining years. He was still around in the late Sixties as an entrant in the straight pool tournaments in New York. By then he was a “spoiler.” One of the top pro’s said of Lauri then, “No, he can’t win the tournament. But you can’t win either if YOU can’t beat HIM.”
Think Jose Parica in height but bald and in a tuxedo and in his late seventies, when the Social Security actuaries were doing their calculations based on sixty-eight as the average life span for an American male. So it was a wonder that he was still a hurdle in big time tournaments.
There was nothing unusual about playing him. Nothing at all…except maybe that if the match stretched into dinner time his wife might come into the room. She was about twice his size dressed all in black, and carried a neatly covered meal on a tray which she would put down on the table next to his chair. And then SHE would sit down and scowl at his opponent with a face that implied some form of malevolent magic. I don’t know if this was her common practice, but I do know she did it at least once during play in the ballroom of The Commodore Hotel. Talk about sharking your opponent! I have been told this also occurred in less formal settings.
According to a report, Lauri died in action. He was playing a straight pool match to one hundred in a pool room. He had something like ninety and had broken the rack nicely. He is supposed to have asked, “How many do I need?” To the answer “Ten,” I have heard that he responded quite clearly, “I don’t think I am going to make it.” The rail was astonished because the out looked easy, and then it was stunned when a few balls later Lauri collapsed. The firehouse across the street was alerted and rushed to help but Onofrio was gone.
If you know the picture of Luther Lassiter stretched out over the table to shoot left handed and using his peculiar right handed bridge, Lauri used to be sitting on the left in that picture, but these days the left side gets cropped out. There was also a fourth player, who coincidentally also died while playing. I can’t remember that player’s name. So the original shot had the player whose name I can’t remember, Lauri, Lassiter, and Irving Crane in the frame. All but Crane died with a cue in their hand.
“Older than dirt” indeed, garczar! On January 31, I’ll be eighty-three. I’ll be celebrating the day at the Derby, where I intend to spend nine days feeling disdain for this present fallen generation.
PS: And I won’t care whether the moving walkway has been fixed or not.
