The first time you remember playing?

Bob Jewett said:

I remember the first time I saw a pool table. It was just inside the door of the building below in 1955. I was fascinated by the tables but I was too shy to play. I went up to the barkeep and said, "Some vanilla ice cream, please." A free copy of Willie Mosconi's autobiography to the first person who can identify the building.

My next memory of pool was in the 1960s when ABC's Wide World of Sports broadcast tournaments, usually straight pool. What game they were playing was not important to me. What really impressed me was how they controlled the white ball. The only player I really remember from that time was Cisero Murphy.

I started playing when I was 16 when a friend got a Sears fold-up table for his birthday. I liked it because I could beat him at it while he crushed me at basketball. Before long I played too well for our games to be interesting and I moved on to 9-foot tables. I saw "The Hustler" about that time.

I used to sit in English class and imagine how full I would have to play one head off another to put the second one in the corner. I'd practice my bridges during class, too, both right- and left-handed. English was not my best subject. My main teacher was Willie Mosconi's "Winning Pocket Billiards" -- nobody around taught pool.

I also remember the first time I saw someone really draw the cue ball. The rec center had just recovered the tables and a good player -- which meant he could run three or four balls at a time :clapping: -- played an angled draw shot and the cue ball visibly curved. I had no idea such things were possible. I have enjoyed spinning the ball ever since.

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Is it in Hamilton New York?

Bob Jewett said:

With the occasional relapse to pool tables. I remember an intramural 14.1 match in which you banked the corner ball out of the full rack back into a head pocket. Twice. Our pairs opponents were really irritated.:grin:

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Of course I remember that. It was more than 40 years ago, but I always enjoyed playing any cue games with you. You probably taught me that shot.

I grew up on a ranch outside a very small town of about 400 people in Nebraska, but they did have a pool hall. Only pool, no drinks or food. My great-grandparents lived in the town and I was sometimes dropped off to visit them.. I was probably about 8 years old. My great-grand father liked to play pool and would take me with him. He was in his 90s.

Don't remember a lot other than I really liked the game and, the really interesting thing to me was that my great-grandfather's eye sight was so bad he couldn't make out the numbers, but knew what to shoot by colors of the balls and whether they were stripe or solids. As I remember, he played pretty well.

Pool hall closed and played some here and there while in there Navy, but after I retired I really became hooked and now can't imagine leaving in a house that doesn't have pool table where I can shoot some everyday.

Aloha
Randy

RandyinHawaii said:

I grew up on a ranch outside a very small town of about 400 people in Nebraska, but they did have a pool hall. Only pool, no drinks or food. My great-grandparents lived in the town and I was sometimes dropped off to visit them.. I was probably about 8 years old. My great-grand father liked to play pool and would take me with him. He was in his 90s.

(Don't remember a lot other than I really liked the game and, the really interesting thing to me was that my great-grandfather's eye sight was so bad he couldn't make out the numbers, but knew what to shoot by colors of the balls and whether they were stripe or solids. As I remember, he played pretty well.)

Pool hall closed and played some here and there while in there Navy, but after I retired I really became hooked and now can't imagine leaving in a house that doesn't have pool table where I can shoot some everyday.

Aloha
Randy

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And that’s why Emily can keep her damn 4-ball....:angry:

My unkle henry was in the VA Hospital when my parents took me to visit
him.

He was playing pool with other vets in the hospital as well> I remember
watching him play and thinking it looked like fun.

henry and uncle Jimmy were both pool and golf players. Good players.
My dad tried to keep me away from the game because he didn't want
me exposed to the life.

years later they bought me a little 2x4 card table pool table for Christmas
and I really loved to play.It was my only exposure to pool for possibly 7 years
but I developed a litlle talent and when the age came I drifted into the pool room.

Thanks for starting this thread,it is fun for evryone and speaks about a love for
the game that we all shared at least in the beginning.

At first it was just playing kids my age or a little older,but once I saw it as
a way to financial independence things got serious.

None of my kids have ever played anywhere but home and probably never will.
My son Jeremy played Ronnie Allen. having heard stories and such,

Ronnie laid it down ,dropping his cue on the floor while Jeremy was shooting
and haming it up. Jersey Red also came for dinner and entertained us with stories.
and shooting

Thankfully the excitement was abated with cautionary reminders of the dangers and peril
of a wasted life. These lessons stuck in the childrens minds as did an affection for the colorful
players.Barry Szamboti was there as well as his family,everyone had a fun time.

Denny Glenn and Verl horn added to the pleasure and stories were told that made eveyone happy,

First time Pool was like 1953, 1954 at the Boys Club in Miami, Florida. Think the Pool Table were 3' X 6", total crap, that wobbled. Ball were all chipped from be knocked on cement floor. Cues were nothing but total junk, with some sort of tips. We did have Chalk. Kids played 8 ball, and you played until you lost. Kids stood on line to play Pool, as Pool was popular. We had FUN sometime gamble for a penny a game, as a frozen bottle soda was a nickle. If you got caught gambling, you were suspended a week or more from the club.

I'll guess the first time I swung a cue was around 1962 or 3. Our parents bought us a Round Table that had 1 hole placed somewhere off center as I remember it. The table was so cheap and wobbly I suppose my father couldn't put up with that even though there wasn't a lot of money laying around. He was a Engineer if you know what I'm saying. Likely ate on him pretty good.

They quickly replaced it with a bumper pool table. Now that was fun but it wasn't long we all mastered running all 5 balls. My oldest brother had already started playing pool at the local bowling alley. Gold Crown 1's. (There's 6 years difference in age.) He discovered caroms and showed me the concept. We started adding rules to bumper pool with caroms in mind. Extra points caroming into the hole. I at least learned what masse meant and of course I tried it a bit.

Brothers went to college and that was basically the end till I started attending SIU Carbondale, IL
At the time I thought I was a champion air hockey player. What a rude awakening. Feeding that machine with quarters was too expensive so I had to find something else. No way I could hold a candle to the Chicago players.

Lo and behold there was a couple of Iranians rooming next door of my dorm room. Ali loved caroms. I'd at least heard of the game, and we hooked up. The pool room on campus had a Gold Crown Carom Table. I think it was around $2.00 per hour total to rent the table. Maybe $1.50. This is 1973

After weeks of this fun we walked downtown and found a 9' AMF table. It was occupied so we sat down to watched. These guys weren't playing caroms. They were doing something completely different. 3 Cushion! Never saw it or heard of it.

That night I decided to learn more.

In the 70's and 80's (actually before) Carbondale, IL was a place to stop for the Road Players.
Johnson City had just ended, but the momentum was still happening. The Fat Man helped keep things active for sure. Watching the best road players play absolutely sold me on these games.

I grew up with a pool table. My father played pool, golf, and cards and gambled quite a bit at all three. My first real memory comes by a story from my mom. He had somebody over at the house and made a proposition game where i played but i did not use the cue ball. I got to shoot the object balls in as i pleased. I think my mom put a stop to it she did not like the idea of me playing for money at the age of 5 or 6. I wonder how much I would of won?

Not too many Lally Lanes out there.

It was a religious experience.

Was in Nashville having dinner at somebody’s house. I’m 15-16. Never hit a ball before. I belong at that table.

Got my neighbor (both HS sophomores, juniors at best), to walk a couple three miles to a “pool hall” on Nolensville Road. We were playing and his sister’s boyfriend, Gary, a senior, comes in. Says you have to play for money and he wants to play me.

I got a Quarter. I’ll wager that. I won.

Only game I ever felt like I belonged.

Basement, more like cellar, lol, of my grandpa and grandma’s farmhouse. Big old thick slated Brunswick with those woven leather pockets. Me, my dad, my grandpa and great grandpa. Played a lot on that table when we visited. Wish I remembered more of it. Grandpa liked to play rotation and 8 ball (1 in the side, 15 in the other side).

For me, it was in February 1969 that my father bought his dream house and realized another dream of his when he bought a used Gold Crown 1 off of his friend Mike Eufemia for the basement. I had already been around the game for a few years, sweating some matches at the Golden Q in Queens, NY but I'd never hit a ball. Little kids weren't allowed to play there at night.

In February 1969, my dad bought a Palmer cue, gave me his old cue, and I started playing pool in our basement. It was so much fun, and the memories I have of playing against my father as a kid are some of the fondest memories I have of our time together.

And now, 51 years later, my love affair with pool continues.

Post above has me thinking beyond my first memories. Winter of my 8th grade year my dad and I did most of the basement remodel together in our family home and he bought a pool table. Nothing fancy, don’t even know the brand but it had a slate bed and played nice. Through high school, especially in the winter, if we were both home we played quite a bit in the evenings. Both of my best friends had tables, and we played a lot. Best memories are playing with my dad.

I remember playing in a small town bar with my dad about 8 or 10 years old. I recently started playing again after a layoff and shoot some local bar tournaments. One of the guys in our tournaments I played against when I was a kid because our dads were friends. He's now 70 and I'm 67,

jeephawk said:

Basement, more like cellar, lol, of my grandpa and grandma’s farmhouse. Big old thick slated Brunswick with those woven leather pockets. Me, my dad, my grandpa and great grandpa. Played a lot on that table when we visited. Wish I remembered more of it. Grandpa liked to play rotation and 8 ball (1 in the side, 15 in the other side).

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This story gave a little twinge...or ache.
I was the only pool player in my family...I was found out because I started playing good.
...I would’ve loved to have played with my father and grandfather.
...you got a nice memory.

Snooker Theory said:

The first time I remember seeing a pool table, I was visiting my grandpa's he was a pretty avid player, I was about 5 at the time, they had a pool table set up adjacent to the house, I didn't get to play for whatever reason, but remember being quite interested in the game.

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Similar story for me. My first time playing was about age 5 (maybe a year or two later) at my grandmother’s house. My grandfather passed away when I was 2 years old, so I could not have played with him. But my father still played when we visited Grandma. My grandfather built the house, rescued the 7’ table from a bar, and refurbished it himself. The picture is my grandfather and my dad. No brag, just fact.

Korsakoff said:

It was a religious experience.

Was in Nashville having dinner at somebody’s house. I’m 15-16. Never hit a ball before. I belong at that table.

Got my neighbor (both HS sophomores, juniors at best), to walk a couple three miles to a “pool hall” on Nolensville Road. We were playing and his sister’s boyfriend, Gary, a senior, comes in. Says you have to play for money and he wants to play me.

I got a Quarter. I’ll wager that. I won.

Only game I ever felt like I belonged.

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Her name was Sue, I was drunk she wasn't, she sharked me in the cab of fourth generation Ford pickup truck. Bench seat with one of those disposable Indian Blanket seat covers with a sleeve for a rifle that you used to buy at Wal-Mart. Of course, you had to open the door the pull the rifle out.

I lost a shoe that night. And I had to explain how that happened to my parents.

Shoes don't come cheap.

Snooker Theory said:

I'd love to hear some stories about how you guys started playing pool. I wonder how did you find the game and did you fall in love with it immediately or something you grew to love? Did you find it by yourself or did someone teach you?

What are some of your favorite memories from when you first started playing?

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1961 in On the town square Crockett Texas on the second floor above Sherman Drug. I was 14. Half of the room was for domino’s and the other half had 4 8 foot tables with leather pockets. Rotation and 8 ball were the first games I played. Straight pool was very popular. I had my favorite house cue that I hid in the closet. I remember playing two guys from out of town when I was 16. I beat them out of $40. The next day I showed up the pool room owner told that the two guys I played the day before had robbed the Elkhart bank which was about 40 miles from town.

About 1963. I was 6 years old, and going to YMCA day camp during the summer. We would go the the YMCA center in the morning, get on a bus, and head out to the camp site on the river. At the end of the day, they would bus up back to the YMCA center, where our parents would pick us up. There was a bumper pool table at the center, and that was what we played, while waiting on our parents. It was all over after that.