When I first moved to the USA I had plenty of free time on my hands as my wife and children could not join me from the UK for 6 months. During that time I learned to play American Pool (As opposed to the Snooker and UK 8 Ball I'd played back in England) at the clubhouses in a large retirement community where my Grandmother lives here in Southern California. I started regularly frequenting a clubhouse close to her, practicing and playing games with the residents when they invited me. One of these was called Gene. Gene is short and skinny, and like many old men his head looks a little too big for his body. He always had a twinkle in his eyes and needed very little prompting to tell me how he'd been a rack boy in the 30's and he'd hustled strangers for the houseman, who knew he had enough speed to beat most people who passed through.
Back then we were about even at 9 Ball, and he'd delight in pulling rack tricks on me. (tilting it, racking behind the spot etc.) Most of these I saw but, assuming it was a product of age and bad eyesight, was too polite to complain about. He loved to point out what he'd done to me after my suitably poor break. He'd mention things like using the overhead light reflections on balls as aiming guides and how dirty balls throw more than clean ones.
It seemed to me that he could once have a played a very respectable game, but even in the early stages of developing my own skills it was clear he had lost some of his ability. This he attributed to losing the sight in one eye, and he'd tell me in great detail how many doctors he'd been to and what clinics he'd visited trying to find someone who could repair the damage, but to no avail. Usually around 9.30pm a girlfriend put her head around the door to find him and he'd leave with a sly grin.
5 years have passed, and I have graduated to playing with the upper-echelon Pool players in this retirement community. These players congregate in an bigger, newer clubhouse that has actual Gold Crowns and some even with Simonis, even if no-one on the staff has a clue how to maintain them. I now have a regular practice partner who taught me to play 9 Ball and I now spot him the 8 and usually still end up ahead at the end of the night.
But last week the big clubhouse was closed early on our regular night, so we had to go down to the old clubhouse I used to practice in. It has 4 worn-out Adler tables with blue plastic rails, a 10" US Snooker table with 1.1" pockets used exclusively for heated Golf games and a dilapidated Brunswick-Balke-Collander 10' Billiard table.
We got the last available Adler and had started playing 9 Ball when Gene came in. I waved and said hello. Gene was with an woman he said was his wife (NOT the girlfriend I'd seen 5 years ago) and a younger woman who was presumably a full-time caregiver. The younger woman pulled Gene over to the Billiard table saying they'd all play together. I could straight away see something was wrong, this woman was trying to set up a rack of balls on a table with no pockets and Gene was not objecting, or when he did he did not seem to be sure himself if this was right or not.
I watched this for a few minutes and then could take it no more. At first I tried to encourage the guy practicing (very badly) by himself it would be polit to invite Gene to play with him as there we not other free tables in the room but he just ignored this, so I invited Gene to come play with us, even though I knew my partner is not one to brook interruption in our sessions.
A look at him crossing the room told me time had caught up with Gene. Gone was the spring in his step, the wicked twinkle in his eyes, although the voice still had that carnie cadence that I imagined selling cases of snake-oil from the back of an open wagon. I never found out if it was Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or just plain old senility that had claimed Gene. He made no comments on his glory days of past or of the loss of his eyesight. He did gamely come to the table to shoot but there was no challenge to beat him left at all, he'd make the simplest of mistakes. Despite our telling him we were playing ball-in-hand on all fouls (Which he'd never had a problem with when we first met) he three times insisted on ball-in-the-kitchen, and to make it worse kept mixing up the head string from the foot string. I was torn with letting Gene win out of respect and pity, or showing him what, with his help all those years ago, I had learnt. In the end I got a nice open break in the second rack and ran the table. I found myself playing with a real desire to do it right, as if my own father or grandfather had come to watch me play. I like to think he enjoyed watching some good quality Pool and he seemed genuinely happy for my run. After 4 games he went back to his family for a 3-handed game of 8 ball that took them 40 minutes to complete, and then they took Gene home.
Afterwards I reflected on the experience. On how time and nature humble us all in the end. On how little time we all have and whether we are ever able to use that time to it's fullest. The last lines from Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" keep running through my head (Helped out by an English teacher who forced me to memorize it at 15):
"Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
Back then we were about even at 9 Ball, and he'd delight in pulling rack tricks on me. (tilting it, racking behind the spot etc.) Most of these I saw but, assuming it was a product of age and bad eyesight, was too polite to complain about. He loved to point out what he'd done to me after my suitably poor break. He'd mention things like using the overhead light reflections on balls as aiming guides and how dirty balls throw more than clean ones.
It seemed to me that he could once have a played a very respectable game, but even in the early stages of developing my own skills it was clear he had lost some of his ability. This he attributed to losing the sight in one eye, and he'd tell me in great detail how many doctors he'd been to and what clinics he'd visited trying to find someone who could repair the damage, but to no avail. Usually around 9.30pm a girlfriend put her head around the door to find him and he'd leave with a sly grin.
5 years have passed, and I have graduated to playing with the upper-echelon Pool players in this retirement community. These players congregate in an bigger, newer clubhouse that has actual Gold Crowns and some even with Simonis, even if no-one on the staff has a clue how to maintain them. I now have a regular practice partner who taught me to play 9 Ball and I now spot him the 8 and usually still end up ahead at the end of the night.
But last week the big clubhouse was closed early on our regular night, so we had to go down to the old clubhouse I used to practice in. It has 4 worn-out Adler tables with blue plastic rails, a 10" US Snooker table with 1.1" pockets used exclusively for heated Golf games and a dilapidated Brunswick-Balke-Collander 10' Billiard table.
We got the last available Adler and had started playing 9 Ball when Gene came in. I waved and said hello. Gene was with an woman he said was his wife (NOT the girlfriend I'd seen 5 years ago) and a younger woman who was presumably a full-time caregiver. The younger woman pulled Gene over to the Billiard table saying they'd all play together. I could straight away see something was wrong, this woman was trying to set up a rack of balls on a table with no pockets and Gene was not objecting, or when he did he did not seem to be sure himself if this was right or not.
I watched this for a few minutes and then could take it no more. At first I tried to encourage the guy practicing (very badly) by himself it would be polit to invite Gene to play with him as there we not other free tables in the room but he just ignored this, so I invited Gene to come play with us, even though I knew my partner is not one to brook interruption in our sessions.
A look at him crossing the room told me time had caught up with Gene. Gone was the spring in his step, the wicked twinkle in his eyes, although the voice still had that carnie cadence that I imagined selling cases of snake-oil from the back of an open wagon. I never found out if it was Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or just plain old senility that had claimed Gene. He made no comments on his glory days of past or of the loss of his eyesight. He did gamely come to the table to shoot but there was no challenge to beat him left at all, he'd make the simplest of mistakes. Despite our telling him we were playing ball-in-hand on all fouls (Which he'd never had a problem with when we first met) he three times insisted on ball-in-the-kitchen, and to make it worse kept mixing up the head string from the foot string. I was torn with letting Gene win out of respect and pity, or showing him what, with his help all those years ago, I had learnt. In the end I got a nice open break in the second rack and ran the table. I found myself playing with a real desire to do it right, as if my own father or grandfather had come to watch me play. I like to think he enjoyed watching some good quality Pool and he seemed genuinely happy for my run. After 4 games he went back to his family for a 3-handed game of 8 ball that took them 40 minutes to complete, and then they took Gene home.
Afterwards I reflected on the experience. On how time and nature humble us all in the end. On how little time we all have and whether we are ever able to use that time to it's fullest. The last lines from Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" keep running through my head (Helped out by an English teacher who forced me to memorize it at 15):
"Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
