a funny old thread, I'll add a story about pool
Back when the world was young I was working a special project in Pollock La. about 35 miles north of Alexandria. This was in Grant parish and Grant was D-R-Y!! No whiskey, no beer, no near beer, dry! A man can work up quite a thirst hanging out by himself in a small town where the most exciting activity was sitting on the porch of the boarding house swatting flies. The boarding house was a stroke of luck, a local gave me a far better reference than I deserved or I would have been driving twenty-five miles or so back and forth to the nearest motor court, ancient even then. Each guest at the boarding house had their own wooden rocking chair on the porch and their own fly swatter. I slept on a feather bed with a huge sunken spot in the middle. Didn't matter how I went to sleep I woke up curled up like a cat in that damned hole! Shared a communal bath room and bath tub too, no shower, and not bathing wasn't an option with no AC after climbing iron all day in the Louisiana summer.
Easy to understand a drinking man was ready for a cold one or six when I headed south for the weekend. The first six pack went down like the first gulp of water after crossing the desert, might have lasted ten miles at most. The second one carried me a bit further but fifty or sixty miles down the road I was thristy again and starting to think a pretty girl or a pool game wouldn't be bad to break up the over two hour drive home. I turned right at Bunkie or Lecompte, can't remember which, and came to a medium sized country place. Went in for a cool one and a look, friday night there should be a little going on and the parking lot was half-full.
The party hadn't started yet but there were maybe twenty or thirty people in the bar and something remotely resembling a pool table. Best I recall an eight footer, maybe nine. The rails were broken loose most places and the parts still attached dead as a hammer. The cloth, once green was a nasty shade of gray where it could be seen under the stains. The layered stains and spills on the table were enough to make someone with more sense than I had then consider an air bridge if they had to play on the table. The cloth was ripped and torn, slate showing many places. It had been five days since I had rolled pool balls around though and the few girls in the place were obviously attached.
I started rolling the balls around and it wasn't long before I had a game going and a decent bet with a long tall country boy. Thin but with broad shoulders, longish dark hair and obviously the hero of the place. The folks crowded around to watch him thump the stranger. I was just learning many of the "features" of this table and a few hours later much to the amusement of the crowd I had to admit to myself I couldn't win that night on that table, tuck tail and leave.
This was during a time when I didn't get outplayed very often on a pool table, especially in a one table bar halfway between Resume Speed and Nowhere. The next week I took the alternate route down highway 1, with kinfolk all along the way it took me at least twice as long to drive down highway one but it was a pleasant trip. The following week I headed down highway 71 again, a little getting my own back on my mind. I can't say the beer I drank was the issue the first time, I usually won drinking a hell of a lot more, but I restricted myself to a sixpack on my way down. I wasn't used to getting beat and I damned sure wasn't used to the crowd enjoying the spectacle and laughing at me while it happened!
I stepped in the door of the place and I'd swear nobody had moved two feet since the last time I was there. Twilight Zone time, everything was identical. Naturally the country boy was there and we dispensed with the preliminary dance and went to it! Had to stay away from the rails, they barely held the balls on the table most the time. On the other hand a ball angled gently into the rail halfway from the pocket would slide down to the pocket if you knew the table and which rail did that. The country boy knew the table like the back of his hand and the crowd cheered all his exploits, keeping him pumped and playing for the crowd. I quietened the crowd with a few wins back to back early, nobody was running racks on this table playing eight ball. The balls were cheap, filthy, and stuck together like glue. A couple hours later I had to admit it though, I wasn't getting by the local king on his table.
I tucked tail and left again, never to return for another encounter with the cowboy king. I ran that road a few times years later but never was even sure the place was there. I had only seen it at night and a lot of things had changed. There weren't very many people that I played that I had to admit I couldn't beat in those days. Two of them were absolute nobodies in one table country bars. After playing and losing to the other one for months, Old Joe, I finally figured out how to beat a seventy or eighty year old. He sure took me to school for a long time first though!
Hu
