Parents Against Pool Rooms.....Please Share Your Stories

S

sde

...
Silver Member
This is in response to a post by JAM in an other thread and not to hijack I've started this thread.
JAM said:
Believe me, I know what you mean. My mother was born in 1902, and when I was a teenager, she would not let me go anywhere with her if I was wearing blue jeans. In school, we couldn't even wear pants, and our dresses/skirts had to come to the middle of the knee!

Over 21, I ended up getting me a job in the evening working at Champion's pool room in my area. I can remember my mother saying in disgust: "My daughter working in a billiard parlor." She wasn't big on pool. :D

JAM
Click to expand...

This made me laugh and really jogged my memory. I did not think it was at all funny at the time, but looking back after all these years I can finally see the humor.

The spring of '65, I had just turned 16 and got my first real job at a burger joint which just happen to be next door to the pool room, Anazeh Sands. The very first night, I worked 4 to midnight at the burger joint and after work, at the urging of my co-workers we went to the Sands which was/is open 24/7. The first couple of months I only played for an hour or so and LIED to the parents about why I was getting home at 1:30 to 2:00AM.

To make a long story short it got to the point when I was later then 2:00AM they would lock the house and I could not get in and I would go back to the Sands. This really pi$$ed them off and they started coming to look for me.:eek: I got smart to this and when they were spotted turning in the parking lot I would low crawl to and out the back door and hide in the woods until I seen them leave.:D

Well they got smart too and would leave one of them there and the other would leave. I'd thought it was safe and came walking back in to find my dad standing there waiting to drag my a$$ home. :mad:

This finally got old for them to get up in the middle of the night and play cat and mouse games with me and they resigned themselves to the fact that I was going to do what I wanted.

It was so much fun being young and stupid.

Steve
 
My mother used to hate it when I would go to the local pool hall at 10 years old. It was a video arcade and pool hall combined so she always thought I was playing Donkey Kong :) Once she found out I was shooting pool (brought home my first cue on day at 12 years old,) she forbid me from going back!

Of course, I still went... I ended up walking there and back 2 or 3 nights a week. It was 7 miles there and onother 7 back... Around 14 years old she gave up and dealt with my hobby... Her only rule then was I had to be back by 11pm (usually around 2am :)) and I had to undress before I came in the house cause I smelt like a digusting smoker... The smoke was so thick if you stood at the front door, you could not see peoples faces at the back of the room...


Anyways, my mother did not like pool as a hobby when I was a kid... Here it is 23 years later and I am still playing everyday :)
 
I had a great story about Ronnie Allen's first introduction to the pool room, and I lost it, but if I find it, I will post it up.

I think pool first caught my interest as a teenager. There was a pool room in Northern Virginia called Jack and Jill's. I didn't know it was a happening kind of place for action until 20 or so years later. :o

My girlfriend and me were hanging out at the malls, and we decided we wanted to walk into that pool room to see what was going on. We walked in and it seemed like everything stopped inside. It freaked us out, and we left as soon as we came.

During this era, part of the lure of pool for some may have been the mystery of what goes on inside. I can still remember seeing a sign at another Virginia pool room that said "No Women Allowed." Well, that one really got me. :p

My parents would never get the same enjoyment I do in a pool room. Entertainment to them was the Lawrence Welk Show, and yes, I think I have seen them all! :D

JAM
 
Hi, my names Jack and I'm 2 months and 3 days sober...woooops, wrong forum...:rolleyes:

when I was a lad, 10 to 12 or so, there was this cafe downtown named the B & F Grill. Mama was always adamant that we do NOT go in that place ! I heard the burgers were super good, so I wandered in to check it out. was a smokey place with old guys sitting at the counter, cigarette in hand and a cup of coffee in front of them.

Every so often, this guy would open up the rear door and motion to one of them to come upstairs. I took my cue and went through the door with one of them. the 'door keeper' glared at me, and allowed me to pass. heaven help me ! there was 2 pool tables up those long narrow stairs. first tables I had ever seen with my own two eyes.

there was hard liquor and beer all around. mind you this was Mississippi in the late 50's to early 60's. no alcohol was legal in the whole state. watched them shoot pool for way too long and made my way out and to home. got the beating of my young life (didn't even get a burger from there until I was old enough to drive) when I got home; spies everywhere I guess.

I was out of high school before I ever knew what the "F" in B & F Grill stood for. the "F" was for FLANAGAN...an uncle of mine was one of the owners.

Ahhhhhh ! the memories....:p
 
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My parents thought it was my destiny to lead a career in pool.

Parents get it wrong more times than you think.

Especially if you those immigrant parents with strong ideas about destiny and independence, but no language to support their thoughts.
 
my story

I hit the bars and pool halls a few days after getting my first driver's license, within a week of turning fifteen. As it happened one of the closest bars to home with pool tables also had topless dancers and was within a quarter mile of the bowling alley where I often left my younger brother bowling the midnight to four special until the bar closed at two. I was well known and respected at Mary's since I was a bar table monster. Unfortunately all of the parking was on the street and my car was the only one like it in town.

My dad was a reformed drinker and devout tee-totaler and family man. He found me in Mary's a few times but I got the last laugh. I was playing a very generously endowed dancer when he found me and I played safeties for about fifteen minutes while he waited by the table for me. Impossible for any man actually breathing not to look especially since she often found herself bending over towards dad from across the table when she shot. ;) :)

Hu
 
I posted this story a few minutes ago on another thread. I copied some of it here and added more detail.
In 1973, I was 14. I had a 2 piece cue from Pool City in a black vinyl case. I always shot pool since I was 11. My mom and dad had divorced when I was 11 and my dad, who was hardly ever home the first 11 years, took me to a bar on his first day of visitation. It had a 7 foor pool table and I asked him to let me play. He said no, just throw the cue ball around the rails. So I did and I liked it for some reason. Anyway, I started working when I was 11. My mom would have no problem driving me to work, but she REFUSED to drive me to the pool hall, which was only 3 & 1/2 miles away. So I walked when I wanted to shoot. Anyway, at 14, I had my first "big money" match up. I was set to play this kid named Jack who was supposedly the best player from a neighboring high school. The 'big money" was a set of 9 ball, race to 9 for $10.00. (Don't snicker Fatboy! ) I went there with an air barrel. No money at all. But I did take the time to put a long piece of masking tape along the length of my vinyl case in which I wrote the words I ACCEPT MASTER CARD OR VISA. I don't remember the score, but I won. He really couldn't play all that much, so it was no big deal. Fun memory.
When I got home, I told my mom that I won $10.00 shooting pool. I showed her my case and proclaimed myself the greatest pool player she knew.
She was so mad! I remember her yelling that I was going to be another bum and that only bums shoot pool good. When I went to college and paid my way from working (not pool) and still kept in love with the game, she thought it was good because I had also boxed amateur and had 39 fights. She said she would rather me be a pool player than a boxer, so at least we know the pecking order!
By the way, in college, I would usually win around $50-60 a week shooting pool. I never had to "bum" money from my mom while I was growing up.
 
my father was a very accomplished 3 cushion billiard player as well some pocket and when he found out the reason i was getting home at 11pm at age 15 was that i was hanging out at the pool hall he about lost it! ya see he came from a time where the majority that hung out at the hall we're not the most conducive to family life if ya' know what it mean. the sad thing is i became pretty accomplished at those games myself and the only regret i have is, though my father eventually supported me and somehow knew i was a good player, he never got to actually see me play. i guess that it could have been a good thing though because getting both of us in the same room, competition on our minds at all times, could have ended up in too many "pissing" contests of the century!

skins ------- still wishes his dad could have seen him play....:( but still thinks he would have beat him :)
 
I'm an only child and grew up sheltered by my parents who are absolutely amazing. They have been more than supportive of anything I've ever chosen to do, except pool, lol.

My friend Paulus (good Indonesian player) brought me to College Billiards when I was 21. He planned on playing the regular weekly tournament and I was supposed to watch. After 20 minutes of him practicing I got bored and decided that I was going to play the tournament even though I had no clue how to hold a cue stick and had never played 9 ball before. At that same tournament I met my ex-boyfriend (still one of my best friends), Sam Manaole.

The hospital that I had worked at closed and I didn't have a job. Sam, Paulus and I would hit every nightly tournament in San Diego from Oceanside to Chula Vista for almost a year.

My parents were so unhappy that I was coming home every night past 2am, and not working or going to school. They were never vocal about it, but often expressed to me how they wished that I would go back to school. After a while, they tried to enforce a curfew. I found my way around that by finding a graveyard shift position in a hospital. My parents never knew which night of the week I worked and eventually they gave up trying to keep me at home.

After a period of time, I did enroll in court reporting school. My parents paid my tuition cash and I was typing 160wpm within the first 6 months of school, without practicing. My teachers were in awe that I picked up stenography so naturally, but pool was always on the brain. After a year the school I attended went bankrupt and I didn't want to go to any of the other court reporting schools.

My parents finally gave up trying to get me to quit pool. My dad never understood it and told my mom to let me make my own mistakes and hopefully I will learn from them. When I was 25 I had a few articles published in Inside Pool and On the Wire newspaper. My dad was so happy that something positive came out of it, he bought me a laptop. 6 days after I turned 27, my dad passed away of a massive stroke. His co worker came up to me at the funeral and told me that my dad kept some of the articles I had written at work and how proud my dad was of me.

One of my mom's uncles recently told my mom that my grandfather played pool in the Phillipines (I am half Filipino). She laughs now and says now she knows where I got it from because it definently wasn't from her or my dad. Now-a-days, my mom sometimes goes with me to the pool hall and watches me practice while she drinks beer. Maybe one day she will get bored and decide to play the weekly tournament without knowing how to hold a stick. After all, it runs in the family:D .
 
When i was a kid, my dad thought pool halls were good babysitters.

and since my dad grew up knowing Harold Worst's family (him and harold were about the same age), and the pool hall i used to go to back then was run by Harold's dad and brother Carl, he always felt i would stay out of trouble there. (WRONG)

Now i do have another story that fits this thread nicely though.

At my room we do have a regular that a couple of years ago was coming in when supposedly at school and was losing a few $$ in the process.

on the one occasion that he Parked in front instead of in back like normal, he and i saw his dad literally pull in the driveway on two wheels and the kid immediately threw his stick and smokes behind the counter saying these aren't mine just seconds before his dad dragged him out.

Later his mother called to ask that we kill his action because they couldn't afford it.

M.C.
 
When I was a kid, I would go to the Boy's Club every day after school and play for hours on the pool tables that they had there. I became so good at pool that I eventually bought my own cue (an old Adams).

I didn't have a key to our apartment, so I would carry it to school with me. I was in the fifth grade, maybe 10 or 11 years old. When the teacher saw that I had the black leather case with me, she pulled me aside, and then sent me to the principal's office.

I still remember the speech I received from the teacher, the prinicpal and the guidance counselor. They asked me why I had brought it to school, and I told them I played pool at the Boy's Club every day and that I was pretty good. I told him that I had won a lot of tournaments there and that I would play for hours every day.The principal took my cue case and held on to it and sent me back to class, telling me he was appalled that my parents allowed me to play pool.

At the end of the day, he refused to give my cue back to me, and he sent a note home to my mother. You need to understand, that my mom was a single parent working 2 jobs at the time. The principal refused to give the cue back me, and said that my mother would have to come by and have a meeting with him. My mom couldn't take off work, so I had to call my dad.

To make a long story short, my dad went to the school the next day and retrieved my cue, and basically told the principal that I was a good kid that was in a good environment with good people at the Boy's Club every day. I remember the principal telling my Dad how I would turn out to be a "no good delinquent" because my parents were exposing me to the seedy side of life. The guy would snarl at me every time he passed me in the hall or in the schoolyard, and would always say, "Are you still wasting your time with that pool nonsense? You'll never amount to anything, Sapolis. Mark my words!" All because I went to school carrying my pool cue. lol

Years later, I receved a degree in psychology from the University of Texas. After that I received a degree in Business Administration. I am a business owner, a veteran of military service, a proud Gulf War veteran. I am an author of books about pool, fiction, and life application of biblical teachings. I was a police officer for many years. I have been a mentor, and basketball, softball, and soccer coach at the YMCA. I have taught bible study in my church for over 10 years. I have patterned my life after some of the positive influences that I had from the volunteers at the YMCA and the Boy's Club. I hope that principal is rolling over in his grave at what I have done with my life.

:p
 
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I just wanted to add that "the Pool Room" kept me out of alot of trouble that other kids my age got into.... My parents never liked me being there all the time until they saw other kids names in the paper for doing stupid stuff...

Seems very different now, Alot of teens and people in their early 20's are getting into trouble at the pool room.... Drinking in the parking lot, drugs DUI, etc...
 
No one in my family played at all.

My Father only ever saw me play maybe twice at best. I would have been 14 at the time. He barred me from the poolroom shortly thereafter; it was getting in the way of school. The way I saw it, school was in the way of pool :D

Needless to say, the barring did not work.
 
CrownCityCorey said:
No one in my family played at all.

My Father only ever saw me play maybe twice at best. I would have been 14 at the time. He barred me from the poolroom shortly thereafter; it was getting in the way of school. The way I saw it, school was in the way of pool :D

Needless to say, the barring did not work.
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By about 12 years old my father and I would go to the pool room almost every Sunday in the Winter not much else to do on cold New England days..He started the ball rolling...He corrupted me early on...:D
 
In my home town the only pool tables were at bars or at the rec center. You had to be over 21 to go the bars and in highschool to play pool at the rec center. The only time I got to play when I was a kid was when I would tag along to the bars with my dad. So It wasnt my parents that were against pool... it was the rest of the town.


I cant wait to have kids to show them the beauty of pool.
 
When I was in high school, my parents thought it was time for me to get a job. To that end, one summer they bought me and my little brother paint, stencils, tape, and brushes and sent us out to paint house numbers on the curb. When we first started out, we did what we were told and spent the day painting house numbers. As we became more familiar with the towns around us (SF peninsula), we started spending more time doing what we wanted and just a minimal amount of time painting house numbers. Back in those days, everyone was more trusting and every church left their doors open for anyone all the time. One day I was snooping around a church a few miles from my house and found a pool table. You can guess what happened next. Every chance I got, I would go play on that table. I don't remember anyone ever asking me what I was doing there or giving me any grief for it. Plus I never got caught by my parents. It was one of the worst tables I've ever played on, but I didn't really care about the torn cloth and horrible rolls. A year or so later, my mom died and they built a recreation center behind our house. I could sneak out the back gate and be there in less than a minute. I spent many an hour there playing pool and never got in trouble for that either. However, I did get in trouble for about 10,000 other things. : )
 
Blackjack said:
When I was a kid, I would go to the Boy's Club every day after school and play for hours on the pool tables that they had there. I became so good at pool that I eventually bought my own cue (an old Adams).

I didn't have a key to our apartment, so I would carry it to school with me. I was in the fifth grade, maybe 10 or 11 years old. When the teacher saw that I had the black leather case with me, she pulled me aside, and then sent me to the principal's office.

I still remember the speech I received from the teacher, the prinicpal and the guidance counselor. They asked me why I had brought it to school, and I told them I played pool at the Boy's Club every day and that I was pretty good. I told him that I had won a lot of tournaments there and that I would play for hours every day.The principal took my cue case and held on to it and sent me back to class, telling me he was appalled that my parents allowed me to play pool.

At the end of the day, he refused to give my cue back to me, and he sent a note home to my mother. You need to understand, that my mom was a single parent working 2 jobs at the time. The principal refused to give the cue back me, and said that my mother would have to come by and have a meeting with him. My mom couldn't take off work, so I had to call my dad.

To make a long story short, my dad went to the school the next day and retrieved my cue, and basically told the principal that I was a good kid that was in a good environment with good people at the Boy's Club every day. I remember the principal telling my Dad how I would turn out to be a "no good delinquent" because my parents were exposing me to the seedy side of life. The guy would snarl at me every time he passed me in the hall or in the schoolyard, and would always say, "Are you still wasting your time with that pool nonsense? You'll never amount to anything, Sapolis. Mark my words!" All because I went to school carrying my pool cue. lol

Years later, I receved a degree in psychology from the University of Texas. After that I received a degree in Business Administration. I am a business owner, a veteran of military service, a proud Gulf War veteran. I am an author of books about pool, fiction, and life application of biblical teachings. I was a police officer for many years. I have been a mentor, and basketball, softball, and soccer coach at the YMCA. I have taught bible study in my church for over 10 years. I have patterned my life after some of the positive influences that I had from the volunteers at the YMCA and the Boy's Club. I hope that principal is rolling over in his grave at what I have done with my life.

:p
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When I was a kid, my parents stuck my at the "Girls Club" later to be "The Boys and Girls Club of East County". Instead of playing pool, I played foose ball. I was the game room champion and beat EVERYONE at foose ball and faired well at most of the other game room games they had to. Looking back on it, I wish I had started playing pool back then instead (they did have 2 pool tables):rolleyes: . As I get older, I sometimes think about volunteering over there since I did grow up there during the summers.
 
I didn't pick up a cue until about a year and a half ago ( at age 21) so my folks didn't have a lot of say in it :D
 
My mom and dad opened a Western Auto store (franchise) in 1970 when I was 13, we rented a building for the first 7 years. In the other end of the building was a gameroom ran by one of my dads golfing, drinking buddys. They played golf two days a week and seven card stud three or four nights a week and Pinoucle on sunday nights, so dad had to take me so mom knew he wasen't skirt chasing. I became a great foosball player real quick and waisted time on that and the national tournament organisation went busted so at 16 I started playing pool and subbing in for a my dad in the stud game when he was so smashed I had to drive him home. Dad busted up the poker game one night when the local barber beat my four sevens with four aces and the guy beside me had folded an ace, I got the pot stakes but the poker game stopped forever and I played pool for the next 8 years about every night. I never had a teacher just older friends trying to take my money playing amos and andy or check and double check. I thought I could play till I got beat 9 to 0 by one of Denny Searcy's young trainees, little Johnny Morrow talk about wasted talent.

Leonard
 
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