(SNIPPED SO THAT IT MET THE 13999 CHARACTERS MAXIMUM.)
I had first called Hal I believe in early 2006 or 2007 (maybe 7 now that I think about it). I left a very humble and polite message on his answering machine that basically said I would be honored if he would teach me his aiming system. Days and weeks went by and no call back. To say I got excited every time the phone rang was an understatement. After a month or two, I gave up hope and life went on...
I made it as far as JUST over the Tappan Zee Bridge when the phone rang with a 610 number that I hadn't recognized. I answered the phone and I heard, "Dave? This is Hal...Hal Houle."
***BREAK*** ***SCREEEECH*** >>> PULLS CAR OFF THE ROAD>>>
He always identified himself like James Bond, which I loved. So Hal launched into his inquisition:
How do you aim? Why do you do it that way? WE don't do that. WE do this.
Hal allowed me to pick his brain for the better part of an hour. Mind you, the ENTIRE time cars and tractor trailers were BUZZING just a few feet from my car going about 85mph. With every few minutes that would pass, I would hear a "SIGGGGGGGGGH" from the passenger seat and eventually those sighs started to end with a chirp, so I had to hold the phone as tightly as I could while giving the girlfriend a look that basically implied that we could do this the easy way or the hard way because we weren't going anywhere until HAL WAS DONE.
Within that hour and having the car rock back and forth 1000 times from the air-rush of passing vehicles, Hal gave me my first high-level description of center-to-edge. It was SO SIMPLE, yet SO ALIEN that a player could play his ENTIRE LIFE and never accidentally stumble onto that technique. It couldn't be THAT easy, but it had to be... Hal was talking with such a solemn conviction and had every shot simplified down to a single objective process.
Eventually, the call was coming to an end and I thanked Hal graciously.
"So, when are you coming over?" Hal asked.
!!!!!! "Really? Ha... ANY TIME YOU'D LIKE, HAL!"
We scheduled a time for the following week and hung up the phone. I looked over to my girlfriend and she had a puss on her that meant she was borderline ready to smash my teeth in, cry or walk back to York, PA from the Tappan Zee Bridge.
I brought peace to the situation by telling her that we'd find a FINE DINING ESTABLISHMENT somewhere on the way home, and of course she found the most expensive place she could find.... $15 glasses of Merlot, clams casino, the works... but she earned it, so what they hell.
As we were sat at the table, the waiter filled our water glasses while she put in a wine order. Since I couldn't think of a wine, I just ordered my usual iced tea, which he filled on the spot.
As she started to peruse the menu looking for exotic dishes that would teach me a lesson that I can't just expect to pull off of raging highways for pool lessons, I pushed my iced tea to the middle of the table and pulled her glass of water to sit right in front of my face. I pulled the straw out of my iced tea and sighted down the line formed from the center of the water glass to the edge of the iced tea glass and held the straw to the right edge of the water glass and pivoted the tip to the left until it hit the center of my glass...since I was thinking it was a thick cut to pocket the tea into the pepper shaker.
Damn, that's really close!
I looked up to find my girlfriend staring at me and since we were in a tight little area of an already small gourmet restaurant, the folks sitting around us were also in a blank stare... looking at me and the model I had just setup.
For a moment, I felt a little like Richard Dreyfuss in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" when he started to mold his mashed potatoes into Devils Tower. These fools had no clue, so I didn't sweat it. She, however, slid about 4" down in her chair. Pssh.
When I first saw Hal at his house, his face was a little bloodied-up and scabbed-up. I asked him what had happened and he mentioned that he had fell when Stan and Landon had visited him the day before. I felt HORRIBLE and told him that it was OK if we rescheduled and picked another day.... Hal wouldn't even begin to hear it. It was clear to me when I first met him that he was in very bad physical shape at this point in time. Nevertheless, he used his walker to slowly move into his adjacent pool room and sit in his chair while he called out instructions.
It didn't take long for me to realize that Hal was thinking on a different plane. His cognitive reasoning and logic in regards to core strategy and ball pocketing were so advanced, I literally "clicked" with some of his information years after I had learned it. He would often say things that just, at the time, made no sense -- the kind of stuff you discard in a lesson, however, years later when you progress with his info they become "crystal clear." To this day, I'm STILL catching up to what he was telling me years and years ago.
After that first lesson, I made the journey to his house countless times. During those visits, I heard of every single Greenleaf story there was... the real story, certainly not white-washed. It was a sad falling from grace that man had, riddled with addiction and struggling to make ends meet through his talent.
Even though all of the flop-house stories, paying cops and whatnot to watch him so he wouldn't disappear before a match stories or watching in discomfort as Ralph would do shot after shot after shot of whiskey to the point where people would fight each other to play the fall-down-drunk just to have them wish they hadn't after he'd run 150-out stories....Hal always had a new vignette from his life to share every single time I would come down to visit.
Hal LOVED pool forums. Sure, he was crass at times, other times blunt and sometimes could be perceived as rude due to typing in all caps as if he was yelling. The fact of the matter was even at that time, Hal was in his mid-80s and had no idea what internet or forum etiquette was, nor did he know that all-caps was akin to screaming at someone. He did most of his typing with his 13" Macbook that sat on his chest and two-finger typed until he said what he had to say. In his weak condition, it was easier to hit the caps lock ONCE and then just type than to worry about hitting the shift key and the other letter at the same time.
Throughout all of my lessons and time with Hal, he never ONCE asked for anything in return. I tried and tried, but he wouldn't hear anything of it. The fact was, pool was his DEEP PASSION in life and when he couldn't stand anymore and couldn't play, the only thing he had left was to invite others into his beautiful home and give them free lessons.
Not only did he have great joy in seeing the light go on with a new student, but it was very clear to me that he was living vicariously through the players who came into his little pool room. When I would throw balls out on his table, I'd chalk my cue and roll my eyes up to look at Hal --- his eyes would be shooting from ball to ball, as if he were running out in his mind.
Eventually after a few years of visits, Hal could no longer leave his bed even, even with a walker. I remember one time he called me to ask if I could help him fix his computer because he couldn't get onto AZB, so I rushed out of work and made the 2 hr drive just to find that his Firefox was minimized on his OSX dock. With a simple double-click, his entire face lit up light a Christmas tree, "YOU FIXED IT!"
Every few months, I would make the drive to sit with him, bringing him as many pool magazines as I could find. The Saw is right--- Hal desperately wanted to know who was playing who, who was gambling, who was getting better, etc. It was torturous for him to just lay there and not being in the thick of things.
Some days, we would just sit there and talk about other things where pool was never brought up. I'll never forget the story of him working in Panama when he described running into a 3-toed sloth. These things move VERY slow, slow enough where you THINK you can pet them and everything is totally with your control. Well, apparently that wasn't the case as the sloth had grabbed Hal's wrist with the strength of a chimpanzee and started to climb the tree while physically bringing Hal with him. Obviously, something like that isn't funny as someone could easily die from that, but his style of giving the listener every single minute detail into what was happening and what he was thinking honestly brought me into a fit of laughter. I mean, shit... of all things that could happen from a creature that moves in super slow motion---- getting DRAGGED up into a tropical tree!?!? Sheesh.
Another thing I remember clearly was that Hal survived two train accidents, I believe. No one, but two. He was one tough cookie. Even when he was bed ridden, he would ask me to squeeze his hand as hard as I could. I'm a total pussy, but I didn't want to hurt him and when I said that, he said "Do it," so I did. I felt like I was squeezing a brick. Then, of course there's always a "then," he would take my hand and squeeze it and it felt like my hard was getting crushed in a hydraulic press. The strength in his hands and arms was simply incredible....and the man was mid-80s. I could NOT imagine what his grip strength was like at 30 or 40.
I really loved the man like a father. He didn't have to give me free lessons, invite me into his home and pull me into his pool world, as JoeyA put it... but he did and never wanted anything more than to make the other person a better player. Apparently, he did that a lot since he kept detailed records of those he gave lessons to over the years.
I'm NOT exaggerating: Hal had MANY stacks of 8.5x11 notebook paper stacked about 4 to 5 feet high, where each page had the front and back completely filled out, one student per line complete with the full name, city and phone number if he knew it. There must have been THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of pool players over the decades he had helped.
Although I personally believe Hal Houle should be voted into the BCA Hall of Fame for Meritorious Service due to center-to-edge, he should 100% be put into the Hall of Fame for teaching SO MANY people over the decades. The impact he had on our sport is hard to comprehend if you consider all of the people he taught, and figure all of the people those people taught in passing his information forward -- it's just mind boggling.
Years later, I now know why Hal used to refer to people educated with CTE as "we" as in "We do this" and "We do that." He created a method of play that turned an infinite game into a very, very, very finite game, allowing the player to progress by eliminating a bazillion variables and to him, you were either playing one type of game or the other.
I am FOREVER GRATEFUL that Hal invited me into his "We." "We" is a good place to be for someone wanting to improve his/her game. "We" is in good company, as everyone I know in the "we" are really good people.
Thank you Hal, "we" all love ya and will always miss ya.
-Dave
. I ran into him about 5-6 years later and he remembered me. I was shocked. I knew how many people he met because he was such a warm person. To his family and friends you have my condolences for your loss.
