Click, click, and click, the hallowed echoing of the click of the balls. Today that sound is hard to find. Pool halls don’t have the sixteen foot ceilings like they used to. Drop pockets seem like they simply don’t exist anymore. The smoky haze streaming through the incandescent lights above the table have passed way to no smoking or smoke eaters. The creaking of the oak hardwood floors have given way to the cushy comfort of carpet. My first memories of pool are memories like this.
I was about 5 years old when I first stepped into The Club. The Club was a pool hall and card room in Pierre, SD. I can still remember watching my dad play 3 cushion billiards. At that age I never understood the beauty of that game as I do today, it looked a lot more fun shooting balls into the pockets of the traditional Brunswick drop pocket tables. I would sit quietly on an old oak bench watching the likes of my dad, Bernie , Jim , old Jonesy and others play a game with three balls and no pockets. Somehow I think they are still hitting those three cushion billiards somewhere.
“Sit there and behave yourself”, my dad would say, “maybe you will learn something.” I would patiently watch, never understanding much except the gentle tap, tap, tap of the butt of the cue echoing off the oak floors or the sliding sound of a bead on an overhead string counter. When that happened I knew somebody made a good shot. My patience was usually paid off in the form of an orange Crush soda or a Kickapoo Joy Juice which has since been renamed Mt. Dew.
One thing I picked up early was the competitive nature of billiards and the respect these gentlemen of the game displayed on that billiard table. Although Pierre is a relatively small town these men would cross paths on the billiard table and not usually any place else. Back then pool still had a bad connotation to it, but these men were rather diverse. A construction worker, Insurance agent, State Worker, a retiree. They played for small amounts of money which usually financed my soda, but they respected the beauty of the game and each other.
Yeah, I still remember the dirty brass spittoons, the smell of beer and smoke. And then there was the men’s room with a trough urinal. I had trouble reaching it but the old men seemed like they had trouble hitting it. Somehow those old oak floors had an ability to retain the smell of urine like nothing else imaginable. But I loved it.
Someday I’m going to park the car outside that old building and sit down on the front step and have an orange Crush. Maybe I can see a few of the old guys walk in looking for a game. I’ll follow them in, sit down on that oak bench, sip on my orange Crush, listen to the click of the balls, gaze through the smoky haze and ask if they care if I play a game with them.
I was about 5 years old when I first stepped into The Club. The Club was a pool hall and card room in Pierre, SD. I can still remember watching my dad play 3 cushion billiards. At that age I never understood the beauty of that game as I do today, it looked a lot more fun shooting balls into the pockets of the traditional Brunswick drop pocket tables. I would sit quietly on an old oak bench watching the likes of my dad, Bernie , Jim , old Jonesy and others play a game with three balls and no pockets. Somehow I think they are still hitting those three cushion billiards somewhere.
“Sit there and behave yourself”, my dad would say, “maybe you will learn something.” I would patiently watch, never understanding much except the gentle tap, tap, tap of the butt of the cue echoing off the oak floors or the sliding sound of a bead on an overhead string counter. When that happened I knew somebody made a good shot. My patience was usually paid off in the form of an orange Crush soda or a Kickapoo Joy Juice which has since been renamed Mt. Dew.
One thing I picked up early was the competitive nature of billiards and the respect these gentlemen of the game displayed on that billiard table. Although Pierre is a relatively small town these men would cross paths on the billiard table and not usually any place else. Back then pool still had a bad connotation to it, but these men were rather diverse. A construction worker, Insurance agent, State Worker, a retiree. They played for small amounts of money which usually financed my soda, but they respected the beauty of the game and each other.
Yeah, I still remember the dirty brass spittoons, the smell of beer and smoke. And then there was the men’s room with a trough urinal. I had trouble reaching it but the old men seemed like they had trouble hitting it. Somehow those old oak floors had an ability to retain the smell of urine like nothing else imaginable. But I loved it.
Someday I’m going to park the car outside that old building and sit down on the front step and have an orange Crush. Maybe I can see a few of the old guys walk in looking for a game. I’ll follow them in, sit down on that oak bench, sip on my orange Crush, listen to the click of the balls, gaze through the smoky haze and ask if they care if I play a game with them.
