The Key
Bob will never forget the day he was playing pool as a young whippersnapper and his father pulled him close and said, “Chuck, you may never be good enough to beat your younger sister, but you don’t need to be any good at this game to eek out a meager existence.” And he continued, “Look around you. Look at all the things this game has brought our family. Just in this studio apartment alone we have three televisions and one of them is even color!”
It was that very day, in the fall of 1998 that Bob knew what he wanted out of life. At the young age of 27 he knew that come hell or high water – he would become a very average, middle of the road pool player. He figured if he could find time to put in 15 to 20 minutes of practice a month, in no time at all he could be a really average player. Then once he got to that point, hustling enough money to buy a fresh hot dog off the roller at the 7-Eleven on his way home would be a cake walk. How much better could life get than that?
You have to understand that Bob was born with a gift of sorts. He didn’t dream big dreams like so many others around him. Instead, he had very average dreams. He didn’t limit his dreams to just pool either. In basketball, he once dreamed of making ten free throws in a row. After practicing diligently for three minutes a day for a solid week, he made four in a row and called it good. Satisfaction came easy for Bob. But these chronicles are not about basketball, they are about pool and one man’s desire to reach for the fog, whenever it happened to roll in.
So as you can imagine it didn’t take Bob long to become slightly less than proficient at running out half of his chosen set of balls in a game of 8 Ball. As a matter of fact, it only took him 5 years. Once Bob reached this level of excellence he knew it was time to hit the road. So one day he crawled out of bed, not needing to worry about getting dressed because he already was, and he headed out. He jumped on his bike and rode down to his local watering hole. Once inside he exclaimed, “I’ll play anyone in here some 5 dollar 8 ball!” His exclamation echoed throughout the empty establishment. You would think with it being nearly 3 o’clock in the afternoon that someone would be in the place. Well luckily for Bob, a sweet little old lady croaked out from behind the counter, “I’ll play you some”. But she warned him that the league players would be showing up around six so they didn’t have long.
Well three hours was plenty enough time for Bob and “Shirley” to almost complete 5 racks (I’m not using her real name here because I don’t want to ruin her action). They split the quarters and they also split the first 4 games. It was during the fifth rack that Bob realized something – something that he would take with him for the rest of his career. Bob was running out his last three balls only to follow the cue ball straight in to the pocket behind his last stripe or “ringed” ball as he liked to call them. Well what do you know -- the cue ball got stuck in the table and somehow found its way right next to the sunken object balls. They both starred at the white ball through the glass for a moment until Bob said, “I can get it out.” Shirley was relieved as she watched Bob walk over and flip his cue around. He took the butt of the cue and rammed it repeatedly against the glass window. After doing this a couple of times Shirley screamed, “Stop it! You will break the glass you freaking idiot!” Bob was startled but was glad she stopped him because he was really winded. She said, “I think there’s a key for the table in the back.” And off she went looking for it. She quickly came back and proceeded to open up the table and remove the cue ball – much to Bob’s amazement.
From there, Shirley gave running out her best shot as Bob was lying on the floor trying to catch his breath. Shirley made it down to the eight ball but had a tough shot on it, which she missed. To make matters worse, she left the 8 ball lying in front of the pocket. Bob got up off the floor and fired it into the hole with a huge smile on his face. “I guess I owe you five dollars”, Shirley said as she was reaching into her pocket. She pulled out three crumpled up one dollar bills from her left pocket and was pulling out a bunch of change from her right. As she was counting up the change she realized she was going to be a bit short and a nervous look appeared on her face. But on Bob’s face there was a smirk. He said, “Oh I see you don’t have the five dollars. How about I just take that key instead?” Shirley hesitated for a bit but eventually handed it over.
So Bob walked out of that bar without the cash that day but he left with something so much better – FREE Pool! Bob realized that if he was really going to be a serious but average pool player he needed to have one of those keys. This way whenever he was in a local bar and the owner was absent or distracted, he could just open up the table and play for FREE! Just thinking of all the money he would save left him giddy with excitement. He realized he wouldn’t be eating that night but he didn’t even care.
He was well on his way to mediocrity and he knew it.
Bob will never forget the day he was playing pool as a young whippersnapper and his father pulled him close and said, “Chuck, you may never be good enough to beat your younger sister, but you don’t need to be any good at this game to eek out a meager existence.” And he continued, “Look around you. Look at all the things this game has brought our family. Just in this studio apartment alone we have three televisions and one of them is even color!”
It was that very day, in the fall of 1998 that Bob knew what he wanted out of life. At the young age of 27 he knew that come hell or high water – he would become a very average, middle of the road pool player. He figured if he could find time to put in 15 to 20 minutes of practice a month, in no time at all he could be a really average player. Then once he got to that point, hustling enough money to buy a fresh hot dog off the roller at the 7-Eleven on his way home would be a cake walk. How much better could life get than that?
You have to understand that Bob was born with a gift of sorts. He didn’t dream big dreams like so many others around him. Instead, he had very average dreams. He didn’t limit his dreams to just pool either. In basketball, he once dreamed of making ten free throws in a row. After practicing diligently for three minutes a day for a solid week, he made four in a row and called it good. Satisfaction came easy for Bob. But these chronicles are not about basketball, they are about pool and one man’s desire to reach for the fog, whenever it happened to roll in.
So as you can imagine it didn’t take Bob long to become slightly less than proficient at running out half of his chosen set of balls in a game of 8 Ball. As a matter of fact, it only took him 5 years. Once Bob reached this level of excellence he knew it was time to hit the road. So one day he crawled out of bed, not needing to worry about getting dressed because he already was, and he headed out. He jumped on his bike and rode down to his local watering hole. Once inside he exclaimed, “I’ll play anyone in here some 5 dollar 8 ball!” His exclamation echoed throughout the empty establishment. You would think with it being nearly 3 o’clock in the afternoon that someone would be in the place. Well luckily for Bob, a sweet little old lady croaked out from behind the counter, “I’ll play you some”. But she warned him that the league players would be showing up around six so they didn’t have long.
Well three hours was plenty enough time for Bob and “Shirley” to almost complete 5 racks (I’m not using her real name here because I don’t want to ruin her action). They split the quarters and they also split the first 4 games. It was during the fifth rack that Bob realized something – something that he would take with him for the rest of his career. Bob was running out his last three balls only to follow the cue ball straight in to the pocket behind his last stripe or “ringed” ball as he liked to call them. Well what do you know -- the cue ball got stuck in the table and somehow found its way right next to the sunken object balls. They both starred at the white ball through the glass for a moment until Bob said, “I can get it out.” Shirley was relieved as she watched Bob walk over and flip his cue around. He took the butt of the cue and rammed it repeatedly against the glass window. After doing this a couple of times Shirley screamed, “Stop it! You will break the glass you freaking idiot!” Bob was startled but was glad she stopped him because he was really winded. She said, “I think there’s a key for the table in the back.” And off she went looking for it. She quickly came back and proceeded to open up the table and remove the cue ball – much to Bob’s amazement.
From there, Shirley gave running out her best shot as Bob was lying on the floor trying to catch his breath. Shirley made it down to the eight ball but had a tough shot on it, which she missed. To make matters worse, she left the 8 ball lying in front of the pocket. Bob got up off the floor and fired it into the hole with a huge smile on his face. “I guess I owe you five dollars”, Shirley said as she was reaching into her pocket. She pulled out three crumpled up one dollar bills from her left pocket and was pulling out a bunch of change from her right. As she was counting up the change she realized she was going to be a bit short and a nervous look appeared on her face. But on Bob’s face there was a smirk. He said, “Oh I see you don’t have the five dollars. How about I just take that key instead?” Shirley hesitated for a bit but eventually handed it over.
So Bob walked out of that bar without the cash that day but he left with something so much better – FREE Pool! Bob realized that if he was really going to be a serious but average pool player he needed to have one of those keys. This way whenever he was in a local bar and the owner was absent or distracted, he could just open up the table and play for FREE! Just thinking of all the money he would save left him giddy with excitement. He realized he wouldn’t be eating that night but he didn’t even care.
He was well on his way to mediocrity and he knew it.
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