jasonlaus said:
...JAM...Why don't YOU learn to play pool, then come back and tell some of your own stories.
Uh, I do play pool, probably have played longer than you, but I don't play today anymore. I play a keyboard for a living today, full time, non-stop, and 24/7.
Now, for a JAM story playing pool. Here's a cute one.
Hank Dietle's Tavern in Rockville, MD, used to be a gathering place for all walks of life. Me, I used to be a member of the pool people, but we had our cast of regulars elsewhere in the bar.
The old-timers used to frequent the joint during the day, Sewer John, Fitz, and Laddie. They were in their sevenies or eighties. They'd meet up at Dietles and hang out in one booth that we fondly named "Cardiac Corner." They were all three, the best of friends. I will never forget when Laddie passed away. Sewer John and Fitz looked lost. Both of them died later the same year, all three of them passing so close together in time. It was kind of odd, but I used to like thinking that all three of them were sitting in Cardiac Corner in heaven having a good time yacking it up forever more!
Then there were the bar people who came in each day, ran a tab, and would drink their pitchers of beer. Dietle's only sold beer, no hard stuff. There were construction guys, Navy guys from Bethesda Navy Hospital, lawyers, lab technicians, firemen, and a lot of SES-ers from National Institutes of Health who used to take a walk on the wild side and hang out at the infamous Hank Dietle's. :grin-square:
Every day, I couldn't wait to get to Dietle's to see what was going on. It was like a clubhouse, and I knew everybody. I could drive by Dietle's and tell you who was inside by the cars in the parking lot!
I don't know why we pool people kept coming back. There was only one table in the whole place, a bar box. It cost 25 cents to play a game, and it was always 8-ball with a big cueball.
By night, Dietle's on the Pike was packed, and we had to start a list to play pool. Sometimes, because the list got so long, we'd play partner games. I was young and had not been playing pool a long time, and when it came time to pick a partner, I was often overlooked for the more experienced bar shooters. After all, we were playing for a buck each.
I can't tell you how many times I'd come up to Dietle's with $5 in my pocket, hoping to grind it up to 10 or 20 bucks on the pool table. In the words of Efren, sometimes I got lucky.
One night, the place was hopping, and the list on the pool table had 20 or more. Everybody was playing partners to make it go by quicker. A stranger walked in the door, and he put a quarter on the table. Everybody jumped on him, "Put your name on the list. We're using the list," to which he complied. :angry:
He got himself a brewskie and sat alone, watching the action. His name was finally called. He asked a couple people to be his partner, and nobody wanted anything to do with the stranger, the poor fellow. Nobody wanted to risk a dollar playing with an unknown entity. Then he locked eyeballs with me, sitting there by myself. "Would you be my partner?" he said. I was so excited to be chosen as a partner, I jumped up and said yes.
I told him it's for a dollar or a beer, and he said that was okay. I only had a couple bucks in my pocket, and I was hoping for the best. He asked me if I wanted to break, and I said, "No. You break." He cracked the rack and ran out like a pro. WOW! I didn't even have to shoot, and I made a buck. The next challenged stepped up to the plate, racked the balls, and he broke 'em again. We won that game and the next and the next and the next. Soon, I was loaded with dollar bills. I liked this stranger a lot! :thumbup:
It turned out that the stranger was a top Maryland pool player from Randolph Billiards, and his name was Tom-Tom. We have been good friends ever since, 35 years later.
