Sadly , I spent 7 weeks living in Great Falls and it's a challenge to even find a bar box table to play on and a 4 1/2' x 9' is impossible or has been for me on my trips there .
If that changes Lou I'll let you know .
When I moved there they had TJs and the Corner Pocket with 9’ tables.
But truth be told I did play a lot of bar box up there, stationed at Malmstrom AFB, home of the 341st Missile Wing. I was assigned to the 12th Strategic Missile Squadron and it’s 50 nuclear tipped babies, eventually assigned to sit with 10 of them as a member of Foxtrot Flight.
This all occurred during a time the manpower across all the branches of military were being reduced from too large force and there was an abundance of missile officers running around. So at the beginning of my tour we all had plenty of free time in between our 24 hour underground “Alerts” where we would wait for, but blessedly never heard, the call from SAC Headquarters to lay waste to vast portions of the planet. I had plenty of time to golf, play pool at TJ’s, The Corner Pocket, and The City Bar. At that time in my pool life I became extremely proficient on a bar table, playing on a number of teams that would perennially win the men’s and scotch doubles city championships. I also eventually won the State 8Ball Championship as well as the most coveted pool prize in the state: The Little Chicago Belt Buckle Tournament where, true to it’s name, players competed for a silver cowboy-style belt buckle.
Just months after my first wife and I had settled down in the northern tier, posters started appearing around town advertising a qualifying tournament at Curly’s Creasman’s Cart Wheel bar on 10th Avenue for the BCA National 8-Ball Tournament. Curly, the proprietor, was a white-haired, mustachioed, WWII vet who ran a great honky-tonk bar, which was home to several of the best bar table players in the state. Not thinking too much of it, I stopped by one day, dropped off my entry fee figuring the tournament would be good for a few yuks.
The night of the tournament the place was packed. I don’t actually recall the tournament format, but the place only had a couple of tables, so it was probably short single elimination races. Somehow I made it to the final two and had to play Will Ditto.
Will was a wheelchair player, missing both legs just above the knees, and was an absolute monster player. He wheeled around the table, hit the brakes on his chair, “stood” on his stumps in the seat of his chair, and ran out from everywhere. He was probably a Vietnam Vet.
So there I was, the young, new gun in town from “the base,” and there was absolutely not one person in that bar rooting for me. *Every last, solitary soul* rightfully wanted home-crowd favorite, Will, to win this and carry the Great Falls/Cart Wheel flag on to Dayton. But that was not to be. I played really good and going down to the last game, when I sent the final 8ball towards the pocket, the entire building felt like it was leaning the other way and you could almost hear the whole bar praying it would hang. But it did not. Will was gracious in defeat.
So off I went to Dayton. The tournament was played in the City’s Convention Center. And what I felt really gave me a big edge over many of my opponents at that event was that it was played on 8’ tables. Even though I was dabbling then on bar tables, I was mostly a 9’ table player, unlike many of the bar table specialists in attendance. I remember they had these ball sets which didn’t have any numbers — there were seven yellows, seven reds, and one black. My recollect is that I finished well. I wished I could remember my exact finish, but I’m not sure… maybe like in the high 20’s out of a pretty large field.
Montana was good for my pool game, lol.
Lou Figueroa
