Playing 8 Ball, Fixing Your Car, New Orleans, Fat City, Metairie, Bars, Pool Tables, Friendship, High School Memories, Disco Dancing, Automobile Maintenance, Oil Leaks, Dixie Beer, Minnesota Fats, Playing With Grandson . Ramada Inn Shreveport June 2020
Pic: Montage of Grandson, John, Playing 8 Ball with Gramps, Keith, . Ramada Inn - Shreveport, LA, June 2020.
This is an addendum to this true car fix and pool game from 2010 - recently, in anticipation of the 4th of July Holiday, I met with our grandson, John, in Shreveport where we got to play pool in two ways to beat the heat: swam at the Ramada Inn indoor / outdoor pool and then played some 8 Ball on their pool table, which is located right next to the pool.
I didn't realize how good of a pool player John was, as he beat me once and I won when he had "scratched" while trying to make the 8 Ball in!
Last night, July 4th, 2020, John had fun playing with neighbors at Sam and Susan's house, which also has a swimming pool; John told me he won a few games ... that doesn't surprise Gramps!
Here's the original story:
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Today, I had to get an oil change for my car to be sure that I didn’t have a bad oil leak. While I was waiting for the job to be done by Scott, my car mechanic, I got to play on his pool table, which is next to the service waiting area. This brought back some great memories of playing pool with my buddies in high school.
When I was a teenager, we had a wooden pool table that wasn’t too level in our basement that provided me and my buddies with many hours of honing the skill of pocketing those balls. My brother and I also got our Uncle Hector to cut us some plywood, so we could at times have a makeshift portable ping pong table when we would attach the net and use the paddles.
So as Scott was starting to assess my old car, I went to look for the pool rack under the slated and very leveled pool table and gathered up all of the 15 balls to set up for a break. While I didn’t see powder to place between my left thumb and index finger to help guide my pool stick, I did find the pool cue chalk that can be rubbed onto that area to lessen the friction when aiming to take a pool shot.
Instinctively, even though I was playing on my own, I set up the balls as if I was in a competitive game of 8 ball (Black) – with that ball in the middle of the third row while having as good of a distribution of solid (1 -7) and striped (9 – 15) balls as possible. I grabbed the Cue ball (White) to find my favorite angled position for making the break shot that starts the game.
At that moment, Scott called me to go check out my raised car with the great prognosis that the leaking oil noted on the underside of my engine and transmission area was not at all uncommon for a car over 10 years old and with over 100,000 miles on it; it was something that I just had to keep a monitor on. What a relief! I felt as if I had just sunk in the 8 ball at the end of a very competitive game – like Jackie Gleason did all the time in the movies when he portrayed Minnesota Fats!
So when I went back and shot to break the balls to start my return to an ole pool game session, I was immediately brought back to a “Somewhere In Time” moment like the movie starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In my case, instead of seeing a penny with a date that brought me back to the here and now, I saw a $2 dollar bill and went back in time to the late 1970’s.
As I continued playing and intermittently made some good shots, including a few banked and combo ones, I imagined that I was back with my buddies in Fat City in the 70’s. We were from the Uptown New Orleans area and had gone to places like Bruno’s and the Maple Leaf Bar before college, so we decided to try our hand at the disco joints that had sprung up for a short lived experience in the “Bee Gees” era.
My buddies - David, Scott, Marshall - and I had found some neat places in Fat City that had pool tables, so we certainly wanted to try our prowess that we’d established from playing at my old basement set up and the uptown bars. The party atmosphere in Metairie was never like uptown or the French Quarter, since that area didn’t have much distinctive architecture or scenic landmarks, but we were looking to join the disco scene while it shortly lasted. Remember that old joke about how to dance disco? Using your left foot in one direction, you’d say, “’Dis go here (this way),” and using you right foot, you’d say “’Dat go there (that way)!”
Well we found out that the pool games at one of these Fat City dumps involved dollar bills being placed under the pool cue chalk, so as to indicate that a wager was involved. Not having much money, we scrounged up a few extra dollars for Dave to represent us, since he seemed to have the upper hand for us. After putting up our dollar bills to note that we were the next challengers, we waited Dave’s turn.
The guy Dave was facing looked played really good and even made some fancy shots using the bridge pool stick that one uses in when trying to set up for difficult to reach shots. Feeling very confident, the winner went ahead and let Dave make the break. He even got giddy and put up a rare $ 2 dollar bill to show off his confidence! Marshall, Scott and I gave our two cents of advice to Dave after noting what appeared to be some weaknesses in the challenger’s long shots.
I went ahead and got the rack ready for the 8 ball game and hoped that Dave would at least get one ball in on the break to start some momentum. We all anxiously looked on as Dave went through his preliminary motions of scanning the table and looking for a great angle to make the shot. He carefully put some powder on his hand and then chalked his pool stick cue.
Next, he made a quick stroke with his pool stick and a loud “clank” sound could be heard by all as we were mesmerized in the moment – not too mention also having been doused with a few Dixie long neck beers! Other people from the surrounding tables had taken notice of this game, so things really had gotten to a climactic point.
No one was prepared for what would happen and what hardly ever does occur in a game of 8 ball: Dave had sunk the 8 ball in on the break without “scratching” (sinking) the white cue ball! What a momentous occasion! I had never seen that happen.
By then, Scott was finished doing the oil change on my old car, and I was on cloud nine for not having to get new gaskets on the engine yet! But I think I was more euphoric in going back in time per playing on Scott’s pool table and remembering that incredible time when Dave had sunk the 8 ball on the break – and also the many rounds of Dixie that we were treated to afterwards to by others at the pool hall.
Keith Horcasitas, LCSW, MHA, 1133 Knollhaven Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70810, khorcasitas.yahoo.com, 01/15/2010.
Farctured Frazzled Folk Fables and Fairy Farces, Part II satirizes popular children's stories into adult-oriented renditions. FFFF &FF, Part II is also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble e-book formats.
Fractured Frazzled Folk Fables and Fairy Farces is adult literature that satirizes famous children's stories, fables and fairy tales. The work is Jay Dubya's twenty-first e-book available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook.
Pic: Montage of Grandson, John, Playing 8 Ball with Gramps, Keith, . Ramada Inn - Shreveport, LA, June 2020.
