Yeah, I was talking about on AZB
It was a totally different era Hu, when every little town had a pool hall and there were dozens in every big city. There were at least a few hundred guys running all over the country playing pool and having fun. You could make a living even if you were just shortstop speed as long as you avoided the big guns. There were lots and lots of local players who would play cheap money games ($5-$20 pool), so that you could make a living. Expenses weren't that great back then and you could get by on twenty bucks a day easily.
I figured out once that I played well over 300 different players, some more than once, in an 8-10 year period of my life. And that's a conservative number. I only slowed down because I bought my first pool hall and had to work every day. I still probably had a money game maybe once every week or so. And there were guys I knew that were much more active than me! And for a lot longer as well.
The ones who had the most trouble making games were the champions, since very few people wanted to match up with them. I can remember hanging out in poolrooms and seeing great players sitting on their ass every day and I was playing all the time in the same place. There's more to this story but that's the gist of it.
Jay,
I was talking about getting some of the old time feel back on AZB. It was nice to see Melinda post. Reminded me of her efforts to go pro, Smorg, and the jacket that she, JoeyA, and I had a hand in making happen as well as many others.
It didn't take nearly a shortstop by today's figuring to make money in the seventies and eighties. Mostly I used pool to fund my recreational activities but when I needed to pay bills on a home and business from pool I did while rarely driving a hundred miles from home. I searched out every action spot and challenge table I could find. Most I could slide in and out and make a decent little score every few weeks or so. Couldn't cover them all that often but that gave me plenty of fall-back places if the first one or two didn't pan out.
When it came to expenses it paid to know to hit bakeries, deli's, chicken joints, and other fast food places close to closing time. Could often buy several days food they were fixing to throw out and it came cheap!
A hotel or motel was nice to rent when things were plush. When they weren't cruising a few motels with outside doors late night would find a door hanging open. Somebody that only wanted the room for an hour or less had used one bed, the other bed and showers were untouched. A shower, a few hours sleep and on the road again! A bed and air conditioning or a heater in the winter beat hell out of sleeping in a vehicle.
Funny thing, the only time I went hungry on the road was when I was working a legitimate job. I had spent all of my advance money to pay bills and ended up with a quarter a day to live on for about ten days! That bought a bag of chips out of the vending machine where I was working and the coffee was free. A month or two later I was going through my wallet for a phone number I had lost and found a hundred dollar bill I kept squirreled away. I would have sworn I had spent it but there it was hidden away deep in a compartment. I had ate only one of the small vending machine bags of chips each day for almost two weeks with a hundred dollar bill in my pocket!
That job was in a dry parish(county), no pool hall handy or I would have tried to grow that two dollars. I was getting paid very well on that job plus expenses and per dium. Once I got my first check I ate lunch in a little restaurant where the plant wheels ate every day. Good times for the most part and I made a real friend there so fond memories of everything but a few missed meals!
Hu