Sadly, Geese suffered from schizophrenia. What was told to me was that Geese was down South in a pool room, Louisiana area, that had only one door in and one door out. There were no windows. The action was heavy each night with high-stakes gambling on every table. Geese was in the thick of it.
One night, a couple robbers came in the joint, hearing about the high-stakes gambling going on, and held everybody up at gunpoint, demanding all their cash and jewelry. It was most definitely an inside job, and I'm not sure if they were ever caught. But when they got to Geese, they asked for all his cash, and Geese gave him what he had in his pockets. The robbers saw that Geese had a big roll of cash in his sock, and because Geese did not give it up, they beat the crap out of him, really bad, requiring hospitalization. Geese's older brother had to fly down there and bring him home to Maryland.
I'm not sure Geese ever overcame that experience. It was from this point on that he was diagnosed with schzophrenia after shock treatments and extensive therapy.
That said, Geese never gave up his passion for pool and continued doing what he did best, and that was going on the road as much as he could afford. In fact, Geese stayed with Keith in California for a spell, and according to Keith, he enjoyed one of the funniest times of his life with Geese. They were somewhere gambling, and Geese was wearing a fisherman's hat with a brim. Both of them were, shall I say, feeling no pain at the time. Geese folded back the brim of his hat after winning a game and said to his opponent, "Rack 'em, sausage." The state of mind the two were in, they both lost it uncontrollably laughing at Geese's expression wearing that dumb hat. :grin-square:
I got left in Tennessee by Geese when the two of us were on the road on one road trip. It took me 25 hours and 3 bus transfers to get back home to D.C. I only had 5 bucks in my pocket. It was brutal.
Geese's friends knew Geese suffered from schizophrenia and tried to make allowances for it, I guess. If Geese was stuck, losing, everybody around him was a "black cat." We were in Pittsburgh getting staked by a local one time, and Geese was losing. He came to the stakehorse and called him all kinds of names, stating that the poor man was pulling against him. The stakehorse turned to me and was quite confused. :scratchhead:
Then there was the time at Greenie's, I think it was, at one of the Maryland State Championship tournaments. Geese's mom came to watch the tournament with us. Geese was losing a match, and when he went to rack the balls, he couldn't contain his anger. He threw the 8-ball as hard as he could across the room. Thank the good Lord, it didn't hit anybody. It was quite embarrassing. Cigar Tom's wife at the time came up to me and said that if Tom ever did that with her there, she'd break Tom's cue over his head. :shocked:
Some of the best times of my life, I shared with Geese. As long as he was winning, everything was great. If you went to the horses with Geese and he scored, he'd give everybody with him a little jelly roll. He always did that.
One time in Altoona, PA, we got called up by a stakehorse mayor of some small town nearby. He guaranteed Geese $200 to play some road agent who blew into town. We drove up there immediately. It was on a Sunday, and all the pool rooms were closed, but they ended up playing in a bowling alley that had one table in Altoona. The match was a seesaw match, back and forth, and I was biting my nails. As it turned out, the road agent Geese was playing, I found out many years later, was none other than Scotty Townsend, whom I didn't know at the time. Geese won, but it was a close one. Great match to sweat.
All the matches back then were nail-biters. Most players matched up blindly, not knowing how strong their opponent was. When you were on the road, you'd never walk into a joint with your own cue. You'd have to play the best man in town or a house pro using a house cue, sometimes a metal house cue, and the house pro would be using his own personal cue and know the euqipment well. Now, that's tough action. :grin-square:
Here's a few photos that the Wilson family shared with me many years ago, before the digital age. Do you remember the guy on the lower right-hand side? That was Geese's best friend and favorite cornerman, none other than Big Ed.
Attachments
Last edited:
