I was born and raised in south Alabama, the son of a farmer. The "big" city had around 11,000 people in it, along with 1 pool room, Ralph's Cafe & Pool Room, on Main St. It had 2 snooker tables and six 9 foot pool tables.
I started going into town with my Dad when I was 9 or 10. The feed store was across the road from the pool room, and Ralph served the best chili dogs in town...he always said they were the best in the world, and I have not found any to beat them yet, but that is another story.
The more I went to town with Dad, the more I started hanging out at the cafe/pool room. The following year (I was either 10 or 11), Dad let me take a little summer job cleaning up at the feed store. I made just about enough money to buy a couple of hot dogs and shoot a couple of games of pool.
Back then (this was around 1960-61), you payed by the rack. Regular pool was $.05/game, and Snooker was $.10. They had a man who racked them for you. His name was "Mac" McCordle, an old retired man in his 60s, and a really good snooker player. When I was around 13, Mac took me under his wings and started teaching me to play pool seriously. I got really, really good at Snooker over the next few years, to the point where no one in town would play me any more. The saddest day in my pool life was when I went into the pool room and asked Mac to shoot me a game, and he declined. He said he had nothing else to show me, and that he could not give me a game anymore.
Now, it is well over 40 years later, and I still remember Mac when I get in a tough game, or have a tough shot. I remember how he told me to block everything out and trust what I had done hundreds of times before. He would always say "You shot this shot hundreds of times before. It is the same now as when you shot it then. Trust what you have done and just let it go."
He had no real reason to take a skinny little redheaded boy under his wings and teach him the game, but he did. For that I am, and always will be, very grateful.
Joe
