What was your pool hall like Growing up ?

Town of 6,000.
Above the pharmacy, Sherman Drug.
Up squeaky stairs.
On the town square.
Dominos and pool.
High stakes moon games.
Four Brunswick 8’ers.
10¢ a rack.
Rack ‘em Andy.
One piece house cues.
Bumpers On cues, maybe.
Wood counting beads.
Wood floors.
Curtain for the toilet door.
Lots of smoke.
Coke box.
5¢ Cokes.
Cigarettes for sale.
No beer.
Lead based chalk.
Off limits to Baptist.
1961.
Freshman in high school.
Smelled like smoke.

Like most players who grew up in the 60's I started playing in a bowling alley. I my case it was one of those huge Brunswick places . The pool room was 25 tables with lots of room to play and lite up like a department store, no lights just over the tables. Beautiful Gold Crowns and tru balance cues. You could take any cue out of the rack and play with it, It was beautifully maintained.

I practically lived there and later on I I ran the place for a few years. I almost feel sorry for young players who don't have places like that to play today. In fact in my area there was no less then six bowling alleys with nice poolrooms. It was pool heaven with $2 and $5 ring games everywhere. 5 and 9 games, pill pool you name it. This was not that long after the "Hustler" and pool was really on a roll.
I feel fortunate to have grown up then and taken up pool. Although I was a top little league player that soon fell to wayside as pool took over my brain.

First local room I ever played in was the Duke Sport Shop near Five Points in Durham, NC, down the road from the Women's campus at Duke.

House man was a lush named Billy. There was a mynah bird behind the bar whose entire vocabulary consisted of "YOUR MAMMY!". The food consisted of beef jerky, BBQ pork rinds, and peanuts stuffed into the neck of a 6 ounce coke bottle. The beer always came with salt on the top of the can to take away the tin taste.

Oh, and the clock above the bar ran backwards. A nice little touch.

The "rack boy" (5 cents a cue) was a one armed man named Jules, who looked like a dead ringer for Nikita Khrushchev. The racks weren't always the tightest.

The only high quality local shortstop was a redhead named Mike Wynn, who looked like an older version of the banjo playing boy at the beginning of Deliverance. Cole Dickson wiped the floor with him at another room, The Brass Rail, a few years later, but still, the boy could play. Tried to hustle around DC, but got busted by Charlie DeValliere at Beanie's, and it was back to Square One. I wonder what happened to him?

Best road player I ever saw in there was Bill Lawson, who had the best nine ball break I ever saw. Made two or three balls on every break and parked the one ball by the side pocket to make for an easy runout. Freddy the Beard pegged him as one of the three best 9 ball players in the country before the hooch got to him.

The only other memorable thing about this room was it had a great 5 x 10 snooker table with the tightest pockets imaginable. Ring payball games on that table were the absolute nuts.

Great room, and it's only been gone for about, oh, 48 years. The good ones always die young.

got into pool in the 80ties as teenager, played at one local speakeasy , all gold crown tables , 2 bar tables . 2 main tables at the front for pros and big money games.
the local guy from my town was harold dollar . fat little round man . but could play big time . then another guy who had one of Gus cues . i felt cool just holding it ..

table were like 3 bucks an hour . had tournaments every weekend . everyone could play up til 8 pm when tournament started .

i remember people doing coke off the keyno boards . we used to have 4 pool halls , none now . life changed at 20 i had 2 kids , wife . and then what was important changed / family took over. gave it up for long time . in 95 put a big g 9 foot in my shop and played time to time . now i have 4 year old grand daughter . who takes up Poppy's time . but im slowly getting back into it alittle .

what was weird we played of 5 way 6 ball on 9 ft table . it got popular like 9 ball. 5 bucks to get in rack . surprisingly everyone ended up getting shots . i had friend who i acted like i did not know go in and play i would show up hour later , and we rack up some coin

Jimmy Hodges- cue time

Lawnboy77 said:

I used to drive through that area on my way to/from Kentucky and Colorado when I was stationed in Denver, CO.

Do you know what professional player opened up a hall in Bowling Green in the mid to late 80's? Was it Nick Varner? It seems like I remember it was called "Cue Time".

Click to expand...

Room still there

raycharlesbrown said:

Room still there

Click to expand...

Okay thanks.

Thanks for posting this!