I'm a little sorry to say that my second home in Wallins was the Pool Hall. Whenever I couldn't be found around the house, my mom knew where to look. From my house to the pool hall was probably about 200 feet. No wonder I spent so much time there. It was too convenient. I was known to slip off from home whenever my mom turned her head. She knew where to check first. It was always very embarrassing to have your mom pull you out in front of all the guys.
Yes, pool halls were an all male bastion. I can't ever remember seeing a female in our pool hall. But, upon reflection, I can't imagine any civilized, or rather let me say cultured, person really wanting to hang out there.
The pool hall was located on Front Street in town. It was situated in one of the old buildings that lined the street. All of the other rooms on either side of the pool hall were abandoned boarded up shells. It didn't have a sign or any other markings on the outside. It was a long bare plaster walled room with a high open ceiling. It was not lighted very well, other than lights, which hung low over the pool tables. It was heated by a pot-bellied coal stove, which sat in the back of the room. The floor was black and oily. Cigarettes and other debris were tossed onto the floor. There was no workable plumbing. The restroom was the ground outside of the rear door. You can imagine what it smelled like. There was broken glass and other trash, which littered the ground. The railroad track was just behind the rear of the building.
There were three pool tables. The middle table was reserved for gambling games. This table provided the most revenue for the house. You could find a game of "Go Back" being played on this table most of the time. This was a board game with numbered holes. The shooters drew a numbered pill from a bag. They then attempted to shoot a ball into a numbered hole on the board. If the total of the ball and the hole on the board equaled the number on the pill you were holding, you won. Sounds easy enough, right?
There were some spirited games on this table. I very rarely if ever played, because I didn't have the money. But I did watch, and sometime I would rack the balls. These games were very fast paced. The house charged ten cents for each game. I sometimes earned free games of pool for racking the balls and doing other things for the manager, Garrett Robbins.
Another gambling game was "Double Check." Each player drew two pills from the bag. A player had to have both of his balls made that corresponded to the pills he had drawn. You tried to shoot them in, but also won if someone else made your balls. You started out with the 1, 8 and 15 balls being live. That means that you must hit those balls before hitting another ball. Otherwise it was a bad hit. In this case the ball that was made was re-spotted and the shooter lost his turn.
One last gambling game was "Nine-ball." You only played with the 1 thru 9 balls. The 1 was the only live ball to start. If you made the 1 ball then the 2 ball became live, and so on. You had to hit the ball that was live before touching another ball. Any ball was good that was made off of a combination from hitting the live ball first. The only ball that counted, though, was the 9 ball. This was the money ball. You only won by making the 9. You could make all the other balls and still lose without making the 9 ball.
Garrett ran a pretty tight ship. He wouldn't stand for a whole lot of fooling around. He was subject to run you out of the pool hall for the slightest infraction. I was thrown out a few times. You never knew what might set him off. He was an old man in his eighties. I think he was retired from the railroad. I think running the pool hall probably gave him something to do. His son, Garrett, was a classmate of mine. He got plenty of free practice shooting pool. He was a pretty good shot. I think he probably beat me more times than I beat him, but I became a pretty good player. I can still hold my own in a game with anyone, despite the fact that I haven't played in years.
As stated, I seldom gambled when playing pool. I usually played games for fun when I could pay for the games. A game cost ten cents, or you could get three games for a quarter. We played a couple of different games. One was called "61", or also known as "Rotation." The other game was "Eight-ball." I won't describe these games in detail, because you probably already have received more information than you ever wanted to know about pool.
I guess what attracted me to the pool hall was that I could hang out and watch even if I didn't have money to participate. Even when the town was otherwise deserted, there was someone at the pool hall. There were a lot of genuine characters that hung out at the pool hall. I would like to mention them, but might be speaking out of turn without their permission. Suffice it to say, there were some stories in that place.
The pool hall was one of the places I used to kill time. Other things I could do were hang out on the street or check out Sarah's Café. I could hangout on the street and swap stories and talk. I could also check out anyone driving in or out of town. At Sarah's I could listen to the jukebox, watch someone play the pinball, play cards or chess, or just sit and talk.
The best thing to do was to keep a check on all three locations. I could just go where the action was, unless there was no action. In that case, I had to create my own action. That was usually when I managed to get into trouble. Not bad trouble, just mischief.
Sitting at home was not an option for me. I only came home to eat or sleep. I thank God that I didn't get into anything bad. I was raised to know right from wrong. I clearly knew the difference. I knew not to stray too far from the straight and narrow. And by the grace of God, I survived with my reputation intact. That is with the exception of a wide lazy streak. I tell people that when I was growing up, "I wasn't worth two dead fly's." Fortunately, I found my work ethic as I got older. I just needed a little training. Pay helped a whole lot. I've actually been very fortunate, in that I have been working constantly since I left Wallins. I left town about two days after graduation, and had a job in about a week. And if the Lord is willing I will be retiring sometime in the future for the fourth time. I had thought each time that I was ready for total retirement. But I found out that I really wasn't ready after all. This time I won't be looking for another job. I'm sure this retirement will take, as in "Take Hold." If not then I'm sure that nature or gravity will.
