On Saturdays my dad would take my two brothers and me to McCoy's Tavern. He'd drink whiskey and bet on college football games that ran on a small black and white TV at the end of the bar. I was around 10, one brother a couple of years older and the other a couple younger. The three of us would eat red-dyed pistachios and drink Coca Cola from those little glass bottles that are now labeled "Classic" coke. We'd sit on old wooden barstools and watch grown men, mostly coal miners and railroaders, smoke cigarettes, drink beer and whiskey, gamble, curse, spit tobacco, and best of all....play pool.
My dad wasn't much of pool player, so when I'd ask if I could play he was quick to tell me that it was not a place for kids to play pool.
Within the next few years dad starting hanging out with a black man named Tommy Newkirk. They became drinking buddies, gambling partners and such. And though I was only 15 then, I became their unofficial designated driver, hauling them from bar to bar on Saturday nights. That's when I finally started playing pool. And that's also when I found out that Tommy was a hell of a pool player, probably the best around.
I learned of Tommy's skills in a place called Eddie's, a basement bar off an old brick street in Montgomery WV. There were three 8ft tables and I was learning how to play crazy 8 with four or five grown men at $5 per person. I quickly learned how to lose $20 (all my grass cutting money), and then I quit. Tommy wanted in the game and the other men said he had to use a cue with no tip or a broom handle if he wanted to play. I thought it was a joke. Dad said, "Just watch." Tommy chose the broom and cleaned house.
Watching Newkirk shoot pool with a broom handle, the straw end brushing his side with every shot, well....I was hooked. I wanted to play pool like Tommy Newkirk. Over the next couple of years he taught me so much. I fell in love with the game and have loved it ever since. It was never about money or pride or ego, though each of these creeps it's way in at some point. Still, it's the enjoyment of playing the game that keeps me coming back to the table.