My favorite pool room back in the 60s was the Strand Pool Room
in Clarksburg, WV. Opened at 7 A.M.
Big bar on the right with coldest ,cheapest beer.
Restaurant on right with good, inexpensive food.
You go through open doorway. 12 regulation tables that started hopping
around 9 til about 1 in the afternoon.
Parleys out in the open. Wide open gambling. Machines all around the
tables that paid off but said"For amusement only".
Louie Parise ran the racehorse game.
Most played one pocket: Kenny " Sarge" Gorby, John " Geronimo" Brill,
Guy Buffy, Bill " Slim" Powel, "Billy Bones".
Big nine ball game going too.
One crowd played one and ten.
Mobsters, lawyers, bankers, jewelrers, glass factory workers, coal miners,
hustlers.
All 12 tables kicking with people waiting.
Pool room had been there for years. Charley Duvalier grew up
playing in there.
Lassiter played there, Fats, Mosconi.
Hustlers always passing throug: Old black dude with one eye called
" Deadeye", John Oakie from Philly, " Truck drivin" Ansel McCoy, Frank
Hawkinberry, Ollie Pittman, Eddie Robinson.
Stayed open til 11.
Barber shop in back.
A Greek guy,John Daffin, ran the pool room, Frankie Musci ran the
gambling, old black guy named "Boston" and old Italian fellow
named Charley took the bets.
Some old farmer, Charley Feoppel, and some hard drinking bricklayer
named "Nunie" Fragale would bet thousands playing one hole.
Neat place. Anybody ever there?