FUN WITH EMPTY “POCKETS”

 

When Tim and I were in high school, we rarely had much spending money to do anything fun if the cost was much. That’s one reason we were so creative with the majority of our fun, since it didn’t cost us a thing to get into all kinds of harmless mischief. We heard other kids mention that they got their “allowance,” and we weren’t sure what that was. We rarely got paid for doing any work around the farm, with the exception of making a little money for mowing the lawn once and a while. The amount we got paid for mowing the lawn was directly related to how high the grass was. Our Uncle Ned had a standing offer to pay us 50 cents for each “A” we got on our grade cards, which was BIG money in the late 50’s and early 60’s! Unfortunately, I don’t recall him ever having to pay neither Tim nor myself! If he had paid us 50 cents for each “D,” then we would have been rich beyond our wildest imaginations and been able to afford all kinds of fun, rather than having to improvise “free fun”! When we were in high school, we enjoyed playing pool at 2 “beer joints” (TEACO, and Chuck’s Bar 61). We usually played at “Chuck’s” because he had a real pool table and TEACO just had a “Bumper” Pool table. It costs 25 cents to play on the “real” pool table at Chucks. The best way to get in a game of pool at “Chuck’s” was to hope one of our buddies, who got an “allowance”, would want to play pool with us. When we were fortunate enough to find a “paying” player, we would then use our devised system to play as many games as we wanted with just the original 25 cents. What we would do is to put our hands into the pockets and catch the balls before they went down into the “black hole” in the “innards” of the pay pool table. We would then put the “pocketed” balls into the bottom tray. As a result, we could play as many games as we wanted for just the original 25 cents! To start the first “pay game”, we put the quarter in the coin depression and pushed the arm all the way in until we heard all the balls hit the end of the inner chamber, then we pulled the lever forward and all the balls would roll out to the bottom tray with a BRRRRRRUMMMMMPT sound. After “racking up” the balls, with the 8-ball in the center, since we usually played “rotation” and occasionally “8-ball,” we were ready to start! After a lengthy argument and using various inventive methods to see who would “break,” the game got started. This was the most critical part of the whole game because all the pockets had to be covered since the balls went all over the table and we never knew which pocket one would go into. If all the balls were caught before going into any pockets, we would all breath a sigh of relief. What everyone dreaded, of course, was to let a ball slip down into the “innards.” If that happened, everyone would get really “bent out of shape” and call the “pocket watcher” all kinds of names and use language that would have gotten “our mouths washed out with soap” if any “grownups” had heard us! Sometimes we could play several games all evening if we were fortunate enough to catch every ball before it got lost in the “innards.” We just “played the odds” which dictated how many free games we could play. Some of the pool lingo, I can remember, we used were: “Talk to me cue ball!” “Go for slop!” (You really had to be fast on catching pocket balls for this!). “A double kiss!”, “WOW! Check out that English!” I mainly remember the other lingo we used, especially if one of us let a ball go down the pocket such as, “You @@%##&&*$%##@!”