POVERTY

POVERTY

Now poverty means different things to different people but in my discussion about poverty, I’m talking about having enough quality food to eat, clean water to drink, enough clothes to keep you clean and comfortable and a nice safe place to rest your head at night.  This to me, is the positive side of the borderline of poverty.  However poverty means different things in different countries.  In America, there is no logical reason for practically anyone to stay poor.  If you seek education, work hard, spend your money wisely and spend less than you make, you are bound to prosper.  If you are poor, lazy and inclined to have someone take care of you, you will most likely always remain poor, lazy and inclined to have someone take care of you.  Making excuses about why you are poor is just that excuses.  The secret is to have an aversion to ward poverty so strong that you are motivated to seek out knowledge and work like the devil.  I can’t say that I was born with that aversion but somehow I grew into it.

To stay alive or to help improve the chances of you staying alive, I learned at a later date, that volunteering for anything, while you were in Vietnam was NOT A GOOD IDEA.  I guess you could say that I was lucky.  No, I’ll say it for me.  I am lucky.

But this isn't really about being lucky, brave or scared or any of the things that you might associate with war.  It is about curiosity and compassion. 

The villagers near LZ Ross located in the Quang Nam Province (South Vietnam as it was called back then) were very poor as most of the rural people of Vietnam were at least by American standards.  Before I go any further, I have some credibility upon which to judge the level of poverty one might experience, having grown up in a family of 8, which included my two parents.  As a child, I grew up on a farm, where we had an outhouse instead of a toilet with running water.  We often used Sears Catalog for cleaning up, if you know what I mean.  My mom’s stove was a wood stove and that’s where she cooked for all eight of us.  That meant that the family had to cut their own firewood to heat the stove, just so you know.  And for heat, yeah, we had central heat but the only reason you could call it central heat is because it was centrally located in the very small house that we lived in and the only heat in the house came out of the fire place.  My mom’s washing machine was one of those manual washing machines whose only automation was the wringer which squeezed the water from the clothes as you turned the handle with strong arms.  A flat washboard was placed vertically inside of the “washing machine” which had a  corrugated  or ridged rectangular surface which you used for manually scrubbing the clothes.  For hot water, well, you had to heat cold water that was pumped from an old fashion outdoor hand pump well.  After filling the kettle, pot or what have you with fresh cold water from the well, you had to transport the amount needed for the job to the wood stove, heat it until boiling then transport it back out into the back yard where the “washing machine” stood.  With two of the children still in diapers (yes the old soft cotton type that you used safety pins to bind them to child’s body), the washing machine was used on a very regular basis.  There were no stores to purchase high technology Pampers or such things.  This was back in the age of the dinosaurs; well actually it was back around 1950-1960 when we lived in Husser, Louisiana on a dairy farm.  Our family received not one red cent from welfare or any other government program.  The church didn't provide us with anything either.  We just managed to do without, to endure and to put one foot in front of the other, all without stealing or robbing our neighbors.

When we first moved there, dad had no experience at dairy farming but gave it his best, at first milking a herd of  about 30 “dairy” cows by hand (yes, that means no milking machines, but they did come later).

Breakfast amounted to fresh home-made fried bread and coffee.  No milk for the children or anyone else unless Mom would sneak out to the dairy barn to get her children some needed nutrition which she did on occasion to the ire of dad.  Most of the time, he would just scowl because he knew Mom could only take so much of deprivation, especially when it came to her children.  Anyway, food was scarce.  We didn't have any past experience at farming of any kind.  Neighbors would occasionally lend a hand, plowing a field and helping us plant some peanuts, where we could derive some needed nutrition.  The school I went to was Loranger Elementary School and they actually allowed us to go to school barefoot and I did that on more than an occasion or two, not because I liked it but because I just didn't have any shoes to wear at the time.  My parents weren't made of money and they didn't believe in wasting anything.  Hand me downs were the order of the day.  Hand me downs are clothes that are passed from one sibling to the next as they grew out of them and we shared most everything until they were too tattered to sew or patch a hole.

Now I’m going to stop right now about how I came to be a respectable judge of poverty because I don’t want to stray too far from the story I planned to tell and I don’t want you to think I am sitting on the pity-potty and I don’t want you to do that either for me or my family.  It wasn't all that bad.  Being poor isn't bad, it’s just being poor.  My childhood was filled with enjoyable and memorable things in addition to being dirt poor but rather than go on and on about just how poor we were, I’ll save that for another story and get back to Vietnam.

When we would return from the bush (patrolling the outskirts of the base) after several days we would return to the LZ Ross to rest, write letters and eat in the mess hall where lots of nourishing food and milk waited for us.  We had limited time to eat and drink, so there was no lollygagging allowed.  One thing they taught you in the Marine Corps was not to dawdle.  In Vietnam, people that stayed in one place too long unless immensely fortified, were subject to the enemies’ venom which could come in any form at any moment.  Each day, we would empty the milk that we did not completely drink into a 55 gallon metal drum.  Our paper and plastic would be placed in another drum and our food was scraped into the milk drum making a mixture of milk and food.  When the meal was finished, they would ask for volunteers to guard the Deuce And A Half, which was a M35 truck which carried cargo , men and sometimes was equipped with weapons.  Generally, two trucks would be loaded with the barrels of milk and food and be brought to the village.  The village elders would determine who got which portions.  New guys like me with more curiosity and compassion about how these people lived would volunteer to guard the milk and food.  Now anywhere in Vietnam was hazardous but I didn't volunteer because I was daring, brave or stupid.  I just had an insatiable desire to know how other people lived. 

So, essentially the barrels of mixed food and milk were placed inside the truck, and I would take my M 16 rifle and stand guard next to the drums.  Now you might wonder, why in the world would you need someone to guard this mix of milk and food?  Well, the primary job wasn't to guard the milk and food but to provide protection to the truck in case it was fired upon.  No heavy weapons were mounted on the particular trucks that I rode on. The M 35, 2 ½ ton (deuce and half) trucks that I road on and the drivers had to drive EXCEPTIONALLY SLOW so as to avoid spilling the contents all over the back of the large truck which measured almost 7 meters long and 2 ½ meters wide.  This meant that the truck was an easy slow moving target but thankfully, all of the runs I went on, we were never attacked.  I learned later how volunteering can get you killed but then I was just young, innocent, curious and ignorant about how dangerous of an occupation I had chosen.

As we pulled into the village to offload the treasure, young boys ranging in age from probably 7-11 years of age, would be waving and smiling.  Each was holding a one gallon paint bucket in one hand and waving with the other.  I had been coached about these reprehensible miscreants in advance and knew their tactics.  I also was told it was my job to make sure that NO ONE attempted to climb on board the truck for our safety of course.  Well, my attention was primarily scanning the area for any possible threat with my weapon locked and loaded.  I always carried my rifle on safety, having been taught that from the very beginning of weapons training and having witnessed one of our own guys leaving his weapon off safety, handing his weapon to a friend to help him climb an embankment only to have the weapon go off and shoot him in the chest, killing him on the spot.  Still, I was vigilant for any sign of possible attack.  We were told to move quickly and the truck had barely come to a halt when much to my surprise, these very skinny boys, would hop like monkeys, first onto the hubs of the very high and large wheels, then onto the top of the tires, flinging their one gallon empty paint buckets at the drums of slosh, hoping to get a half gallon of slosh, for what purpose I still to this day don’t know.  I always assumed that the slosh was given to livestock, most likely pigs to eat, but there was such a frantic rush to get the food from the mess hall to the village, I don’t know if the villagers actually ate/drank any of the concoction or not.  As one fleet of foot, skinny-ass kid would move like lightning toward the barrel on one side of the truck, I would make menacing motions, loud grunts and piercing eyes, sometime sweeping the butt of my rifle toward them as if to strike them.  They would dart out of the way as fast as a hummingbird reverses direction without a thought or care of what I did.  As fast as I scared off one kid, another would appear on the opposite side of the truck, quickly dipping his one gallon paint bucket into the barrel of slosh.  It was a game of sorts, repeated over and over until the elders of the village arrived, which only seemed like minutes but was more likely just seconds.  The elders would motion the youngsters away and calm would be the order of the day.  We unloaded the barrels quickly and left without every knowing what they did with those barrels of milk and food.  Coming from a dairy farm, I often wondered if the children who often lived in houses that looked like they were made of sticks, mud, straw and occasionally siding made of coke boxes of all things were actually depending on  this slosh for nourishment.  The ugly truth is as a child, I was far richer than any of these children would ever live to be.  I learned that poverty is only a relative term and poverty doesn't make you a bad person.  It can actually be a fuel to propel you to your life’s dreams as it did me.  When I visit my doctors and nurses, new ones will always ask me if I am allergic to anything and I always reply, “Only poverty.”.

Thanks to one of life’s lessons learned in the tropics of Southeast Asia in a place called Vietnam.

JoeyA

SLEEPING UNDER THE STARS

When I volunteered to join the Marines, I was 19 years of age.  My brother was a few years older than me and he had already paved the way for me.  My brother Barry spent 27 months in Vietnam and he came back all right or so I thought.  At least, I didn't seen any scars or missing limbs.  So I figured if it was good enough for my brother, it was good enough for me.  I had always looked up to Barry for many different reasons, but the most recent one was that he had joined the Marines and was the better man for it as far as I could see.  When he joined, he was a tough guy, when he came back, I though he was Superman and he was, at least to me.

I was a skinny 19 year old kid, who couldn't afford to go to college and my parents couldn't afford to take care of me any longer.  In those days, parents often allowed their children to make decisions like this.  I knew that my brother was finishing up his military obligation and I surmised that I would most likely be sent over to Vietnam as quickly as possible.  This was around November of 1969 and the war was still going on.  I figured that the Marines would get me into good physical condition and I would be the better for it so since I had no idea about mortality and was confident that if my brother could survive two tours of duty in Vietnam, I could survive one.  I joined for two years based upon my brother's advice.  He had told me that this was the way to go because if you joined for two years and liked it, you could re-up for additional active time in service and the government would pay you an extra bonus.  If you joined for 4 years, they would just have you for 4 years and no extra bonus.  So that's what I did, two years.

Boot camp, ITR, & BITS training went fast.  I developed into a lean, mean, fighting machine or so I thought.  This short and humorous story is about sleeping under the stars in Vietnam.  It's meant to be a small window for you to look through at one moment in time and you won't have to get the hankie out except to wipe away the tears of laughter.  Well, some of you might not think it is funny but looking back, it was probably the funniest thing I experienced in Vietnam.

Our unit was located in the Quang Nam Province of South Vietnam and were responsible of guarding one of two "bases", LZ Baldy or LZ Ross.  Essentially, we would do patrols around the bases, dancing with the Viet Cong and the NVA.

I always liked going back to the LZ Baldy or LZ Ross because after being out in the bush for a few days up to a couple of weeks on patrol, you could go back to the "base" and rest, write letters, drink, play cards or do whatever you wanted to do.

If you got sick or hurt out in the bush and you had to go back to the "base", they would make you stand guard duty and you didn't get much sleep then, so I made it a habit not to get sick or hurt while out in the field.

On this one particular patrol we had been out only a few days, when I was setting up sleeping quarters for the night.  The set up was a quick one for only a one night stay so that consisted of a few pieces of chopped bamboo to hoist my poncho over my head and keep the night's mist or rain off of me for the most part.  I didn't have a knife or hatchet with me and there was lots of green bamboo around but if you ever tried to break it off with your hands, you know it didn't like to break off very easily.  So with my MC high IQ, I pull out my trusty entrenching tool which could do almost any task I put it to and began using it to chop some nice size bamboo sticks down.  I bent down one perfect size bamboo stalk and stepped on the middle of the bamboo to keep it steady while I beat down on it with my ever reliable entrenching tool, determined to make quick work of cutting the bamboo down.  After a couple of whacks, I could see that I had to put my back into it because the entrenching tool just wasn't cutting into this particular piece of green bamboo.  I held the bamboo down close to the ground with my left foot and gave a vicious swing and the entrenching tool came down fast and hard. The entrenching tool bounced off that bamboo like a rubber ball off a school yard, right into my shin bone.

Now, keep in mind, we were out on patrol and setting up for the night in the middle of VC country and my eyes bulged out of my head as the pain shot through my body.  I crumpled to the ground, suppressing a loud scream with intense low grunts and growls, that probably sounded more like a loud moan that wanted to be a screech more than anything else.  I quickly gave up on chopping any more bamboo for the night and wrapped myself in the poncho and lay down for the night,  The pain was severe although I could tell that I had not broken the bone.  The skin was cut nicely but the bone put up a good fight and I didn't think I had much tissue damage.  It was already turning dark so I lay down in the dark, in pain, unable to sleep.  I was tough, really tough.  Hell, all of us were tough, really tough.  They trained us to be tough and suck up the pain I did but not for the reason you might think.  It wasn't about some machismo thing.  It wasn't to show my buddies how tough I was.  It wasn't even about trying to prove something to myself.  What it was, was that I didn't want to serve no damned guard duty when I got back to LZ Baldy.  Remember, if you got injured and had to go back to the rear (base) you would most assuredly have to stand guard duty at night, looking through night lenses at apparitions trying to make their way through the concertina wire surrounding the base.  I hated that duty more than risking my life in the field, I really did.  So, I hunkered down for the night and just sucked up the pain.

The night passed pretty quickly for me although the sleep was restless.  Most nights, we were exhausted from marching most of the day with gear that weighed more than half of our body weight.  Most nights the sleep came fast and hard.  It was also short.  You see, we had guard duty at night out in the field too, sometimes setting up nighttime ambushes for the enemy and just to protect our unit from them as well.  When you got back to the rear, you could sleep all night long and that was a treasure I thoroughly enjoyed.  I don't remember having a watch that night but remember waking up that morning and as always, woke with a start.  You kind of did that automatically, waking up with a start.  It was kind of scary over there and you had better be alert even when you are sleeping.  Anyway, I wake up fast and throw the poncho to my side and stand up rather quickly and went down a bit faster than when I stood up.  I slept with my boots on like I did most nights in the field, sometimes changing the socks to keep from getting jungle rot on my feet.  Jungle rot is a kind of tropical scab wound that never heals completely.  Many Vietnam veterans still suffer from jungle rot but for the most part jungle rot is supposed to leave your body after you get out of that particular environment of wet and cold and wet and warm conditions that seldom changes, except with the monsoon rains and the seasons changing.

I quickly realized that something was seriously wrong.  I could not even stand on my feet because the pain was so great.  My buddies called our corpsman over.  Navy Corpsmen were the medical staff of the Marines in the field.  They were also some of the bravest men I ever met in Vietnam.  The corpsman quickly deduced that I had a severe infection in my leg from the entrenching tool fight that I had the night before.  My leg had swollen to twice its normal size and he had to entirely unlace my boots for me because any movement quickly caused me to wince like a wuss.  He suggested a medevac (medical evacuation) for me because I not only couldn't walk but couldn't stand.  I knew that would mean that I would be standing guard duty back at the LZ looking through those damned night scopes half of the night if not longer.  We only had two more days in the field and we would be back at the LZ, able to sleep long hours, eat mess hall food, drink, rest, write letters etc.  I asked him to doctor me up so that I could make it for the next two days.  As I recall he gave me a penicillin shot or some type an antibiotic to fight the infection and another shot that numbed the pain.   He cleaned the wound which wasn't bleeding any more, bandaged it and by the time the squad was on the move, I had found a hearty stick to lean on and away I went oblivious to the injury, looking forward to those nice long fits of sleep waiting for me back at the LZ.

Over these many years like most veterans, I seldom talked about what really happened over there.  No one really wanted to know or so it seemed and quite frankly some of the stories aren't easy to share. We really didn't get a welcome mat when we returned home, so most of us just shut it up inside of us.  It's been over 40 years now and while it might not be easy, some of us should record our stories, if just to act as a warning beacon for those to follow.  The deadlier stories can be told by some and others will keep those to their grave.  Some feel it is better not to relive some of the stories and that's what you do when you tell it to anyone.  It isn't easy to relive some of those stories.  This one was warm and fuzzy and I hope it brings a smile to your face, knowing that some silly things happen in war and some of us can look back on those stories and laugh about our innocence and ignorance.

We all started out that way but that changed rather quickly as many of you already know.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my brothers and sisters. 11-27-14

Joey Aguzin
USMC
Class of 1969-1971.
From the summer of 1970.

MR. Steve

This must have been around 1980, when I first moved back from Jackson, MS to New Orleans.  The infamous Sport Palace was my new stomping ground.  Once I set foot in this pool room, I virtually gave up the bar room pool action for good.

With all of the characters and action at the Sport Palace, one need not go anywhere else to be "edumacated".  I was a novice at best at this time in my life and was eager to learn as much as I could with my free time.  Hustlers, gamblers, scam artists, professional pool players, card sharks and the like were all so eager to help me with my learning.

In those days and even before that, you had to learn by "paying your dues".  That meant that you had to gamble with the better players and you would have to learn by having them beat you senseless or if you were a bit savvy in matching up with the players, you could delay or at least lessen the blows to your wallet while "paying your dues."

I took great care in learning all I could from one and all.   My teachers were many, of them New York Blackie, Al Werlein, Louie Knott, Earl Heisler, Fu Man Chu, Red Charlie, Jim the Lawyer, Mike the Lawyer, Tenneco, Chicken Joe, Big Willie, BJ, Knubby, Kenny the Cop, Rusty, Dave Tobin, Lance, Railroad Willie, Larry the golfer, Hotel Al (who gave me the nickname "Joey with a Tie") as well as many others whose names I have since forgotten and I can't forget all of the traveling pool players who regularly visited the Sport Palace those many years ago.  Each had a story.

This one is about a gentleman named Steve Paternastro (sp?).  Yes, we had gentlemen as well as con men and doctors who frequented the Devil's Den as some would be prone to call the Sport Palace.  MR. Steve was a distinguished man, known for his style of dress and his knowledge of pool, especially one pocket.  So it was no surprise to see me looking for him each time the door opened.  I came to learn that MR. Steve had emphysema and had trouble sleeping (well it seemed so).   MR. Steve almost always wore a stylish black hat and an overcoat and seemed to always arrive at midnight or just a bit after midnight.

If I had been working all day and playing into the night MR. Steve would seek me out, moving quietly and saying very little, but always made himself appear near wherever I was.  And as always, I made the first move, asking MR. Steve to play some one pocket.  At this time, he was a far more knowledgeable player than me but the fact that he would play for "cheap" made him the perfect teacher.  We would often play for $1 to $5 a game but never more than $5.  I never saw MR. Steve play anyone for more than $5 and he dressed well, so I just supposed that he didn't have the need to gamble for more than chuckles.  We probably played twenty to 30 times over a two year period and sometimes I would get lucky and we would break even but that wasn't a regular occurrence.  At that time, I kept track of my losses quite accurately and while I tried to balance my wins and losses, MR. Steve always got my cash or I broke even with him.  Who knows, he might have let me get even a few times to just keep me coming back for more.

Over a two year period, MR. Steve managed to win a total of $63 dollars from me.   It wasn't a King's Ransom but it was a lot of whippings because of the small dollars that we played for.   I didn't see him on a regular basis but I could always count on him teaching me a shot or two during our match and the bet was always cheap enough and it covered his pool time and I figured I would eventually learn and become a better player.  Over that two year period, I did become a better player with the "help" of MR. Steve and all of the others who shared my passion for the game of pool.  It seemed as I got better and better MR. Steve visited less often.  I didn't know if his lung condition had worsened or if he just didn't like to play pool as often but I did notice that he "appeared" less often as I improved my level of play at one pocket.  Finally, I had not seen MR. Steve for almost two months and one night just after midnight he appeared like a ghost in the night, slipping in quietly as he always did, wearing his trademarked black over-coat, black hat black trousers, black shoes and white shirt.  I immediately went into my pool sales spiel about having missed his lessons and so forth, eager to play him once again.  During those couple of months, I had worked hard on my game and had jumped up a ball or two and knew that MR. Steve was in for a thumping from Joey with a Tie.  Mr. Steve smiled and listened as I excitedly told him how I was looking forward to his match and then he lowered the boom on me and said, "Son, you are too good for me.  I can't beat you."  Well, I wasn't ready for that type of candor and sure didn't want to hear any of this.  After all, MR. Steve had beaten me mercilessly for over two years, never giving me a spot that I had a chance at winning with, reducing the spot (handicap) as the months and years went by to finally me getting no spot at all but only able to hold my own.  Now I was ready to get some of that money back that I had lost to him and while the money never was my motivation for playing pool and still isn't to this day as most will tell you, I was counting on beating on MR. Steve, at least hoping to regain some of my dignity in green backs no matter how small the count.  I looked at MR. Steve earnestly and pleaded my case, lamenting about all of the whippings I had taken from him, with him, all the time, listening and nodding his head in agreement and an occasional smile.  I wailed feverishly, "MR. Steve, I have never beaten you out of a dollar in these past two years.  The best that I have done is break even with you.  I have lost 63 dollars to you over these past two years.  YOU HAVE TO LET ME HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN SOME OF IT BACK!"  Now during those two years I had played individual matches for a couple of hundred dollars and even played for $300 for one game on one pocket, so it wasn't about the money.  In fact, I had won many thousands of dollars over those two years, "earning while I was learning" but MR. Steve just shook his head and finally said, "Son, that $63 is locked up in the vault."  I had never heard such a statement before and all I could respond with was a smiling grunt of appreciation as I learned yet another lesson from one of my teachers.  Expect no quarter and give no quarter.  What don't kill you will only make you stronger.  When you get ahead, stay ahead.  So there you have it.  MR. Steve, thank you for those solid lessons in one pocket as well as those lessons of survival and the humor in which you taught me well.

Dennis Troxclair, I hope you enjoyed my story of MR. Steve.  He was one of my favorite guys that crossed my path.

ROAD TRIP 1979 with Bobby Headrick of Jackson, Mississippi

Bobby Headrick was a top pool player from Jackson, Mississippi and we knew each other pretty well.  I had just purchased a new Datsun B 210.  It was a standard shift, 4 cylinder and had a very weak air conditioner but when he asked if I would be interested in making a road trip, I just had to check with my angel of a wife.  She told me to go and have fun.  Eat your heart out guys.

I was 39 years old at the time, loved pool, pinball machines (the gambling kind) and bass fishing.  Well I loved the flipper pinball machines too, but the gambling kind 20 hole and 25 hole machines paid off money back in those days.  Well the owners of the establishments paid off money if you beat their machines.  The gambling pinball machines beat most people but I developed a gift for beating them.  It required mongoose like reflexes and find motor skills which I possessed naturally and Bobby knew that I was barred from playing the pinball machines in Jackson so he invited me to to on a road trip.  He would play pool for money and I would gamble at the pinball machines wherever we went.  Bobby knew I could be counted on for coming out on the positive side with the pinball machines and I knew he could be counted on for the gambling at pool.  Back in those days, Bobby was a much better pool player than me.

We left Jackson, headed toward Augusta, Georgia and we would stop along the way, wherever a bar or pool room had a pinball machine.  I had discovered that if the pinball machines gave fair odds on the money that you invested and they didn't "tilt" too easy, I could beat almost all of them.  We stopped in a little town where they had some new $.10 per game 20 hole machines and it wasn't long before I had the machine up to 1,950 games.  That amounted to $195 and that came from about a ten dollar investment.  The owner of the pool room walked up to me while the machine was registering the final games and said in a very loud voice, "THE MACHINE IS BROKE".  I politely said, "No, it's working fine."  He bellowed once more that it was broke and for me to click off the games, get paid and get the hell out of his pool room.  Knowing that getting paid was a lot better than the alternative, I collected the $195 and we were back on the road in no time, happy to have made a nice score on the pinball machines.  It wasn't the only score we made on the pinball machines but it was the biggest for that trip.

Bobby picked up some cash here and there, winning every time that he played anyone.  He didn't play for big money but he always won and I liked that.  As we cruised into Augusta, Georgia, we were passing over waterways on low hanging overpasses that covered that part of Augusta,  Bobby told me that the motel that we were staying at was at the end of one of the overpasses and being the bass fisherman that I was, I had packed a rod and reel and tackle box for the trip.  When we stopped at the motel, it was just about an hour before dark and I hurriedly ask the lady that ran the motel if anyone ever fishes off the road down by the overpasses and she said no and asked why.  I told her that I liked to bass fish and wanted to see if I could catch some fish there.  She said that nobody every fished there and she didn't think there were any fish in there but the water looked like it could hold some largemouth bass and I was eager to try.  I asked her if I caught any fish if she would like to have them, and she laughed and said, "Sure son, if you catch some fish you just bring them back here and I will clean them and cook them up."  I hurried down to the water's edge as it must have been a 15 minute walk from the motel  and found a nice looking spot.   There was about 30 minutes of daylight left and I quickly tied on a broken-tail minnow by Rapala and made a cast.  Seconds later my lure disappeared and I set the hook, reeling in a 2 1/2 pound bass.  I repeated this over the remaining daylight three more times.  When I caught the first bass, I realized that I had left the tackle box because it was too heavy to carry that long distance and it contained the fish stringer that I kept in the box.

I had a pocket knife and quickly cut a reed from the shallows and threaded the long reed through the fish's gills and laid the bass in the shallow water, tying a knot in the reed around the fish's gills and another knot to the standing reeds that remained in the shallows.  The bass didn't put up a fight and could breathe in the shallow water so they stayed alive.  Anyway, by the time I had caught the fourth bass which also weighed about 2-3 pounds, it was too dark to continue and besides that I didn't know if I was in a dangerous environment of not so I headed back to the motel with the four reeds strung across my back.  When I walked in, the lady that ran the motel couldn't see the bass because I had them strung across my back and when I pulled them from my shoulder and back, she almost fainted and yelled that no one had ever caught any fish from those waters.  She took the fish but we never tasted any of those cooked fish, leaving early the next morning, headed back to Jackson, MS.

About 3 months later, my wife and I moved back to New Orleans where I was originally from and I told the story to my neighbor who had a brother who lived in Augusta.  He talked to his brother and about two months after that, his brother sent him a newspaper article about the lunker bass located in the waterways under the overpasses surrounding Augusta, Georgia.  It was nice having the story of the bass being confirmed by another source.  I wish I would have kept that newspaper article but I will always have the memories of a fine road trip with a good friend.
JoeyA

THE BEATLES

The year was 1964 and I was 14 years old.  My parents couldn't afford an allowance so I had to earn my spending money and did so by selling concessions at football games, seat-to-seat, at Tad Gormley Stadium, otherwise known as City Park Stadium back in the day.  Back then there were no beer sales allowed at these games.  Most of the football games were high school teams and I suppose it was a good idea that alcohol wasn't sold.  My specialty was Barq's Root Beer, although from time to time, I would also sell peanuts or popcorn but I sold a lot of Barq's Root Beer back then.  Barq's was a popular, locally created soft drink and they were sold in heavy, glass bottles.  Interestingly enough you seldom saw broken bottles anywhere.  And if you were a real hustler, you would scavenge the empty bottles to return them to the local grocer for a handsome price of $.02 each.  This was back when they paid you to recycle.

The bottle soft drinks were heavy and were carried in a wire basket which had the ability to carry 6 bottles at a time.  I carried one basket in each hand and quickly found out that the people didn't like drinking lukewarm soft drinks and they would let you know it, sometimes after you had already opened the bottle for them.  The football crowd tended to be much older teenagers than myself and were quite boisterous even without alcohol but I can't remember seeing an actual fights at any of the games.  I didn't get rich selling soft drinks but I was able to sell more soft drinks than the other men and boys by heaping large amounts of chipped ice on top of the already soft drink filled baskets.  I would walk up and down the stadium aisles, shrieking, "Soft drinks here, get your ICE-COLD soft drinks here!"  A flash of the ice-covered wire baskets would often spur even the not-so-thirsty attendees into purchasing a Barq's Root Beer.  Sure the baskets were heavy to begin with and the ice just made them heavier but when you need and want to make a dollar, you did what was necessary.  It wasn't only young boys like myself that sold the soft drinks either.  Older men, past their prime with no particular job skills and no retirement could sometimes be seen selling soft drinks as these games.  Some of the men were older than my dad who at that time was already 57 years old, having married when he was 43.

The concession stand manager asked me if I wanted to work a concert coming up and I quickly agreed thinking about the many people who would be attending.  The concert just happened to be the new musical sensation from the other side of the pond, called The Beatles.  The day of the concert was September 16th, 1964 and as I contemplated the large amounts of money I would be making, I had already started thinking about the girls at 14 years of age.  I didn't really know much about them but it was apparent that I was attracted to the opposite sex at an early age and figured that this would be a good place to see and meet some of them.  I hadn't really bought into the Beatles new music but it seemed pleasant enough to me.  There long hair kind of turned me off.  I came from a family who frowned on long hair, at least none of my brothers had what I considered long hair nor did any of my school mates.  I thought The Beatles long hair, kind of made them look like girls and I think that kind of turned me off from liking them early on, because I hadn't bought into the long hair thing just yet.  Anyway, I arrive at the stadium, early as usual, eager to make some good money.  Tips were rare back then but some people did give you a nickel or dime tip every now and then but for the most part, tipping was rare.  I guess money was a little harder to come by back then.

It didn't take me long to see that this concert wasn't the optimum conditions.  The stage was seated at the South end of the stadium.  The concessions headquarters was at the North end of the stadium and that made for a long walk to where the customers were located.  Sure, it was September and this is an outside stadium in New Orleans and it was HOT, almost always hot even at the night games which is what I worked mostly.  The crowds came early and I sold a couple of baskets of soft drinks but it soon became apparent that these people weren't in a soft drinking kind of mind.  Their minds were fixated on The Beatles and concession vendors were an annoyance.  Trying to pitch "Soft drinks here, get your ICE-COLD soft drinks here", against "I Want To Hold Your Hand!" was futile so I sold my last remaining drinks and returned the wire baskets and decided to listen to the concert.  Now like I said earlier, I liked their music but at this early time (for me) I hadn't completely fell in love with their music, after all, who could stomach that long hair on men?  Well the girls and women that were at this concert didn't just like The Beatles; they didn't just LOVE The Beatles, hell, they practically swooned over every chorus of every song.  That long hair didn't seem to turn off the girls for sure.  I had never seen females behave this way.  The closest I ever saw females acting like this was when Elvis Presley would come on the old black and white television we had at home and even then, the girls and women would kind of restrain their ecstasy but that wasn't happening at this concert, no way.

I quickly concluded that the girls were not only not interested in holding my hand but they were revolted by the soft drink pitch.  The long hair on The Beatles coupled with the new style of music that they played had a violent addictive effect upon practical every female in the stadium and even some of the guys.  The girls would swoon from time to time and sometimes rush the stadium, only to bet met by dozens of blue coats linked arm and arm together, preventing anyone from reaching the stage.  Other police officers and medical personnel made steady work by carrying off girls and women who had fainted and fallen to the ground.  It was a spectacle for sure and while I enjoyed the music, I wanted a souvenir and Ring Starr was my favorite Beatle, so that was when I devised THE PLAN. I saw that the stage was well fortified on the West side but was practically void of policemen on the North side.  I was standing at the North end of the stadium when I decided that this was my day of infamy and I would make a bold plan to snatch the drum sticks that Ringo played with, right from his hands.  I mean I was smarter and faster than any of those policemen down there and I had a plan.  I wasn't some delirious, swooning teenager and was more of a soldier of fortune, knowing that those drum sticks would be worth mucho dinero.

So now I'm estimating how long it would take me to run the 70 yards I had estimated to reach the edge of the stage.  The stage was rather high, about 6 feet high but I had deemed quite accessible from the North, especially since it was't fortified by any police.  This plan was concocted in a minute or two and immediately put to work.  As I took off running at a comfortable pace, not wanting to expend too much energy in getting to the stage because I needed to catapult myself to the top of the stage, which I felt I could comfortably do.  My body was light in weight and my feet moved like the Greek messenger of the gods, Mercury, or so I thought.  As I closed the distance between me and the stage, the adrenaline was kicking in and I knew I had plenty of energy left to make the catapult so I urged my muscles to move even faster.  My plan was simple, get on the stage, snatch the drum sticks from Ringo's hands and be gone just as fast as I arrived.  That was it....nothing beyond that.  What did you expect from a 14 year old?  Anyways, my legs are moving as fast as I have ever run and I am maybe 15 yards from the stage ready to make my leap and catapult.  I'm looking side to side and in the front of me, there are no obstacles (no police), I go even faster, when suddenly I am knocked to the ground.  I didn't realize what had happened to me until the police officer twisted my hands behind my back, lifted me to my feet and was scolding me with some harsh language, telling me that I was going to JAIL.   My face had grass and dirt on it and my skin had a slight brush burn in a couple of places but I was fine other than that.  I immediately went into a wail that I worked at the stadium selling concessions and that I didn't want to go to JAIL.  Being incarcerated terrified me as a child, not that I feared closed in places but jail was a place a 14 year old boy didn't want to go.  I didn't know much about the juvenile facilities either but I knew I didn't want to go to JAIL.  So after a very serious scolding, they made me promise not to try that again.  The music didn't have exactly the same attraction as it did earlier, the girls didn't look as pretty as they once did, faces all contorted with emotion that was hard to believe, so I finished listening to The Beatles, at quite a distance from any police officer and finished the concert on a relatively low note.  No drum sticks from Ringo Starr, no girl friends for me to hold their hand and no profits from selling Barq's Root Beer.

Yeah, I know it was a bummer but today is September 12, 2014 and WYES (a PBS television station) has a concert scheduled for September 16, 2014 by the FAB FOUR, the California-based BEATLES tribute band who have toured the world, singing the signature songs that made The Beatles arguably, the greatest band of all time.

My wife decided that she didn't want to go but  I have a couple of tickets for this WYES sponsored concert and will be going to relive my youth if only for an hour and half.

If you see me on the news next Tuesday night, handcuffed and looking a bit disheveled, don't worry too much about me, just come visit me in JAIL and make sure the police didn't take the drum sticks that I stole from Luis Renteria, who plays the drums as Ring Starr.

JoeyA

Maybe the best pool I have ever played.

07.14.14
Most everyone knows that I really enjoy one pocket, which is almost always played on a 9 foot table.  In recent months I have taken to trying to improve my level of play on bar tables.  At my age, bar tables are probably my best opportunity to compete.  There's a lot to be said for bar tables, especially if you get used to playing on them.

On one magical evening in the heat of a Louisiana Sauna Summer, I was playing at the magnificent Lacy's Cue pool room (non-smoking) in Chalmette, Louisiana.  While there were probably only twenty something players, the field was full of Champions and it was a Thursday night pool tournament on the bar boxes.  Names like Cliff "Lemme hold a hundy" Joyner, Jamie "Progeny of Pool" Baraks, Jamie "The Red Rifle" Ferrell, Ronnie "The Wiseman" Wiseman, Trey Baker, Benny "the Goose" Conway, Jr,  Stoney "StoneWall" Stone to name a few; showed up for the weekly $500 added, NON-HANDICAPPED event.

The pool room owner has this weekly tournament and the races are to 5 on both sides of the brackets.  Everyone knows that the better players are most often going to win on big tables or small tables as evidenced by the results in most pool room events no matter what the race to.

My first match I can't even remember who I played but I know I won but after that, I found myself facing the formidable "WISEMAN" and down 4-2 from his wise play.  Somehow I managed to get back to 4-4 and was breaking.  I broke very well using a new cut break that I have been recently employing on the bar boxes when playing 9 ball.  I made a ball on the break and with the balls spread really well, was able to finish the rack and win the match.  Ronnie, the good sportsman that he is, laughed heartily and congratulated me on a great comeback.  Another note is the Ronnie seeing that the momentum had changed when I was making the comeback NEVER ONCE attempted to shark me or do anything to distract me.  Kudos to THE WISEMAN!

My next match was against THE RED RIFLE, a local legend for his straight shooting abilities.  I came out of the gate firing my six shooter and at close range the six shooter proved deadly over the rifle.  In quick order, as luck would have it, I found myself ahead 4-2, getting roll after roll in my favor.  I win the match 5-3 and send the Red Rifle to the one loss side.

Now I find myself facing the practically invincible "THE PROGENY OF POOL", a moniker I bestow on him because of the conversation he shared with me about his early development. (maybe a story about him in my blog with his permission, another day)  In short races on bar tables, almost anything can happen.  The Progeny of Pool instills fear in every player's heart because of his methodical and precision play.  Well, I know he gives me butterflies on occasion when he is making every shot and every shape needed.  This day his game was a little off and I took advantage of some rolls that went my way and managed to squeak out a hill-hill victory from one of the best bar table players in North America (imo).  The fact that he is a professional player and a WORKING MAN, makes me admire him all the more.  It's tough to get up at 4:00 am, work all day, then come to a pool tournament at night and expect to perform your best.  His play as usual was exemplary but he fell a little short and I got a little lucky.

Pocket billiards is the greatest sport from an amateur's viewpoint like mine, primarily because as an amateur I get a chance to play against the best players in the world and when I have a magical night, I might win a match or two.

After winning the match against "The Progeny of Pool", I had the winner's bracket locked up.  It was late, very late and I was tired at 4:00 am but that is no excuse for losing.  I still played well at this late hour, having slept a couple of hours before the event.  I now faced STONEWALL, an adversary so deadly that few dare stand up to his prowess at the table in gambling matches.  Luckily, this was only a tournament.  Nevertheless, Stonewall played VERY SLOWLY and VERY DEADLY from the very beginning of our match.  He had to beat me two sets in a row and he beat me the first set 5-3 and the second set 5-2.  Even in defeat, I could hold my head high that I never sharked my opponents nor cheated them and I played the best pool of my life against some of the best players in Louisiana.

JoeyA

Naples, Florida 9 Ball tournament Circa:2009- RICKY BINGHAM

This was an old story that I cranked out rather quickly when I used to post on the newsgroup rec.sport.billiard.   I thought some of you might enjoy it but the truth is that I like to give honor to those who have shown it and this is really all about Ricky Bingham.

It is lunch time here in New Orleans so I am taking a few minutes to crank
out some copy.  I have read many of your posts and want to thank you for
your support.

It was apparent that there were forces at work other than my own that kept
me alive in this very fine tournament.

There were lots of good players as the brackets at www.azbilliards
indicates.

FTR, Andy Tennent did NOT beat Buddy Hall.  Buddy Hall forfeited his match
due to an allergy illness.  He was feeling poorly when he played Grady
Mathews who played well most of the tournament.  Grady thrashed several
opponents.

Most of my matches were either hill-hill or so close to it that the
difference is hardly worth mentioning.

The first important note that I would like to make is my match with Ricky
Bingham, from Kentucky (a coal miner and pool room owner.)

RICKY BINGHAM from Kentucky IS A FIRST CLASS GUY!

Besides being just a naturally friendly guy, he showed what class is all
about.  While he and I were struggling to get our game together, I dogged my
first nine ball on a shot that anyone could make 9 out of ten times.  It
hung up in the hole and I didn't want him to have to make the effort to make
the shot which as I said, was hanging in the hole.  I pushed it in not
because I was angry (although I was very disappointed with my lack of effort
on the shot) but because I was frustrated with my effort.  It's hard to give
100 % effort on every shot but that is exactly what is required if you want
consistent play (even the easy ones).  I smiled and told him "You don't have
to shoot that one" and I pushed it in. He walked over close to where I stood
and whispered, "You do know about the rule: If you don't allow your opponent
to finish the game, you forfeit that game PLUS ONE MORE GAME, don't you?  I
said no and he quickly said that he wasn't telling the tournament director
about this faux pas and we continued on with our match which was a tough and
grueling one.  We traded game for game all the way to 10-9 with each of
sharing the lead and I hung up ANOTHER nine ball on a relatively easy shot.
He won that game plus the last game to beat me 11-10.

Rick Bingham is what class is all about.  He knew like I did that any player
in this tournament could win a match against any other player.  It is not
like gambling where when you have a bad match, you just reach in your pocket
for some more money to continue the play.  When you lose to your opponent
you can't buy back in and you don't get a chance to stay in the winner's
bracket.  The rule is the rule and my plane was late getting into Naples, FL
so I missed out on hearing some of the rules which this was one of them.  I
doubt if Ricky even knew when I arrived as I was just one of 75 players
coming there to test their mettle.

And just so you know, Rick is a very competitive player.  You can ask any of
the people who felt his fire.   But what he will be most remembered by me,
is a MAN OF MOST EXCELLENT CLASS.

Rick was my third match.  I was one of about eight people (out of 75 or so)
who did not get a bye in the first round.

But before I go back to work, let me tell you that the Seminole Indian Tribe
put up some very big bucks for this tournament and they plan to have another
one next year also in Naples.  It will probably either be at the Ritz
Carlton Hotel or at the Seminole Indian Tribe's new hotel in Naples (soon to
be built).  It was a success by every comments.  There was local news
coverage as well as INSIDE POOL MAGAZINE, photographer and writer Paul XXX
(I forget his last name but only spoke to him briefly.)  You might see some
great photos in Inside Pool Mag because there were certainly lots of great
matches.

Everyone there loves the game and some couldn't run a rack but put up their
entry fee anyway just for the chance to compete against some of the world's
best pool players.  They too earned my respect and appreciation.

I got a chance to meet the Seminole Indian Tribe's liaison or perhaps public
relations manager, O.B. Osceola, a sharp and personable young man who also
shares a passion for the game.  There were many other Seminole Indians in
attendance as well as some their sponsored players...

Some more tomorrow as I clear out some paperwork.  Thank God I have a job
and family to come back to.
JoeyA

HOW TO CRAWFISH.

The year was 1972.  It was only a year after finishing my tour of duty with the United States Marine Corps where I had spent some time sloshing through the rice paddies of Vietnam and was thoroughly glad to have those times behind me.

My girlfriend, "Candy", was a Cajun girl by the name of Ethel Ann Brulte and she was very close to her sister Geneva and brother-in-law Shelby Laborde, both of them, Cajuns as well.  At that time I didn't really know much about my future wife's family but I was learning that Shel-ba-dy (as Shelby was often called,) was quite the hunter and fisherman.  Shelby came from a long line of Cajun men, his parents both of Cajun heritage.  I had no idea just how much he knew about fishing and hunting as this was my first experience in hunting or fishing with him and his family.

I was still trying to impress my girlfriend "Candy"at the time and when Shelby offered to take me on crawfishing trip with her, I didn't hesitate to say yes, although I had not been around him or even knew very much about him at all.  It was going to be a family outing with Shelby, Geneva (his wife) and his sons Steve and Chris who was just a baby at the time.  The girls would stay with the boys and Shelby and I would catch the crawfish.

Now if you don't know about boiled crawfish, you must know that here in Louisiana, especially in South Louisiana, boiled crawfish is considered a delicacy.  They are boiled in highly seasoned water, sometimes using the same water to boil corn or potatoes, making them taste very peppery, since Cayenne pepper or Chinese red pepper is one of the key ingredients.  You can Google the recipes for boiling crawfish if it is something you'd like to try.  Down here in the New Orleans area, seafood boils are extremely common with most families owning and using their own boiling pots to fix up a batch of boiled seafood whether it be crawfish, crabs or shrimp.

Now one of the funny parts about this story is that I had never been crawfishing before.  Being the Marine that I am, I decided to take my medicine and tell Shelby that I didn't know anything about crawfishing.  I remember that he didn't laugh or belittle me for not knowing and that endeared him to me right away.  He quickly explained that he already had all of the gear and all that I would have to do is to show up at 6:30 AM on a Saturday morning.  He also said that I should bring a change of clothes and explained that we might "get a little dirty".  I didn't think much about that because I had seen people crawfishing from the sides of the highways all over South Louisiana for years and they didn't seem to be getting all that dirty from what I could see.  Anyway, I brought a change of clothes like he suggested and met the family at 6:30 AM at their home in New Orleans, Louisiana.

I placed my small bag of extra clothing in a paper bag into the back of the large SUV and off we went.  My smiling girl friend had a twinkle in her eye and I didn't know if it was her being happy that I decided to do the crawfish trip or if there something else to come.  There was a nice conversation shared by everyone in the SUV on the way to Laplace, Louisiana, probably about a 30 minute ride to the location Shelby had chosen to try his "luck".

Shelby had brought ten crawfish nets and about 20 chicken necks for bait.  Yes, the crawfish love chicken necks and they are a sturdy piece of meat that will last a long time as the crawfish try to gnaw the meat off of the bone.  The crawfish neck, is tied in the middle and at the bottom of the net, so that the chicken neck will help sink the net below the round metal ring which the net is tied to.   A string is tied to the top of the metal ring in a triangular fashion so that you can hoist the net using a long slender pole.  Most people crawfish in shallow waters, standing on the shoreline of bayous, swamps and use cane poles or other poles about 6-8 feet in length to place and retrieve the nets.  People also catch crawfish on crawfish farms where rice fields or other shallow places where water collects and crawfish thrive and those commercial operations almost always include using a boat and all metal "traps" that are rectangular-shaped and about 2 x 4 x 2 feet in size.

As we got off the Interstate 55 onto highway 51 which runs along side of the Interstate for a ways, I could see that the area we were driving toward was a very large swamp, filled with Cypress trees and the swamp had a thick, bright green algae covering the entire swamp's water.  Not many people know this, but crawfish eat the green algae or so I once read.  As the SUV approached the chosen area, I began to see vehicles parked along side the road.  The vehicles covered at least two city blocks and people were already lined up on the shoreline, with nets in the water.  We were a little late getting there and I was kind of worried because there were NO vacant spots available for us to place our nets.  All of the spots were taken.  I mentioned this to Shelby and he said, "You don't have to worry about that".  I didn't know what he meant by that but just accepted his words and didn't concern myself with how we were going to find a spot to put our nets in, when all the spots were taken.

Shelby parked the SUV and we all got out of the vehicle and that's when he told me, "Take your wallet, keys and anything else in your pockets and put them in the SUV.  I didn't know what that was all about but the Marines had trained me to obey orders from a senior officer and Shelby as definitely senior in this regard.  He handed me 5 nets and instructed me to tie on one chicken neck to the center of each net and he did likewise.  It didn't take long to do that and he handed me two nylon sacks which were what I think he called 30lb sacks, which would be to put the crawfish in.  These nylon sacks had thousands of holes in them so the crawfish could breathe and stay alive for a longer period of time.  Shelby had a ball of string in which to tie the nets but I still saw no long cane pole and was definitely wondering now about where we were going to place the nets and didn't think we could grab the nets with our hands and so I finally inquired.  He simply said, "Come on, follow me."  I was perplexed but this wasn't my area of expertise, so I remained silent and followed.  We were walking along side the road, next to the swamp and the ditch that everyone had lined up on.

There must have been over a hundred people crawfishing off the side of the road that day.  I had never seen that many people gathered in one spot just to crawfish and I saw no available spots for us.  Families were standing shoulder to shoulder, guarding their precious crawfishing spots and we walked along the long line, me looking ahead, seeing no available spots for us to occupy.  Finally after walking about a quarter of a block there was this tiny hole of about four feet that one family had left open.  Shelby gave me the nod and said, "C'm on" and he stepped between the people occupying the road, into the ditch and started walking out into this vast green swamp.  I was shocked but followed closely behind him, trying not to glance at the people who we walked past.  Now just so you get the picture, EVERYONE was fishing off the side of the road, standing on dry land, with their nets sitting in the shallow ditch that bordered the vast green swamp. Shelby walked further into the swamp, thoughts swirled through my head; "what about alligators, what about water moccasins (snakes) and what about quicksand?"  I had heard that you could walk into a swamp and the ground beneath the water might be so soft that it would suck you up in an instant and you would be unable to extricate yourself from the sucking mud and would drown in the water.  The water level as we crossed the ditch was knee high and it started rising very quickly, thigh deep then waist deep, then chest deep and as I soldiered on behind my apparently undisturbed crawfishing companion, something started hitting me on my legs and they were hitting my legs relatively hard and to be honest, I got really concerned.  I first thought that we had riled up a bunch of snakes and they were attempting to bite me through my blue jeans.  I thought to myself, thank God I have on long blue jeans, not contemplating that snakes could easily bite through the blue jeans, just holding on to whatever hope my racing mind could conjure up.  I was trying to keep Shelby from knowing how concerned I was and didn't say anything to him as I walked directly behind him out into this vast swamp.  The water was now just above my pectoral muscles and I would have to start swimming if it got any deeper, when I whined, "Shelby, SOMETHING IS HITTING MY LEGS!".  He just looked back at me, smiled and said, "Yea, we gettin' to the good spot now."  He didn't tell me what was hitting my legs and didn't seem concerned and so I had to believe that whatever it was it wasn't going to hurt either of us, although I didn't know for sure.  He stopped a few seconds later and I was relieved because I couldn't walk much further because of the depth of the water.

Shelby handed me his five nets and so now I had ten nets on my shoulders.  He took the ball of string and tied the string horizontally between two Cypress trees.  He secured the string with some fancy knot tying that I had not seen before and then he asked for one net.  I handed him the one net and he tied the net with a vertical string so that it would tie onto the horizontal string that he had just placed.  Each net would sink off of the horizontal string about 5 feet, nearly touching the swamp floor.  A minute later, he asked for another and in just a few minutes we had 5 nets sitting in the water.  I waited for him to ask for another net but he didn't.  He did tell me that maybe we should check the first net he put down and asked me to open one of the sacks which we were going to put the crawfish in.  I thought that was kind of foolish because even with what little information I did have about crawfishing, I knew that most people gave the crawfish at least 15 minutes to find the bait.  If you caught a dozen crawfish at a time, you would consider yourself fortunate.  Well, the nets had not been in the water more than 5 minutes and he pulled up on the first net we had put down and what I saw as he pulled the net above the water will be forever recorded in my mind.  I know my eyes had to be bulging because I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  The net was filled with crawfish.  The net was about 18" in diameter and it hung about 1 foot below the wire rim but the unbelievable sight was the net hung deep with the scores of crawfish fighting to get to that one chicken neck but there was a mound of crawfish above the metal round ring as well probably four inches tall and they were falling back into the water as Shelby poured most of them into the open sack that I held.  My heart raced as I realized we had hit the bonanza of all bonanzas.  I knew then that crawfish prefer chicken necks over green algae.  The second net produced almost as many crawfish and the third, fourth and fifth net all produced an abundance of crawfish, so many that the first sack was filled before we finished dumping the fifth net.  Shelby tied the first sack very tightly and handed me the sack.  I hoisted it onto my shoulders hoping that the crawfish would find my tender shoulder to gnaw on.  Each time we emptied a net, we looked to see if we had any of the chicken neck left as we had brought additional chicken nets.  Most of the chicken necks were still intact and we might have replaced a couple of them and put the nets back into the water.  What was amazing was the fact that so many crawfish would be fighting to get to that one single chicken neck in the net.  It was a sight I will never forget.  We repeated the cycle once more, waiting about 10 minutes this time and filled the second 30 lb sack almost as quickly as the first one.  I still had 5 more unused nets hanging from one shoulder but we had no more sacks to put the crawfish.  So now we had been in the swamp for about 20 minutes at most and we had 60 lbs of crawfish.  That was more than enough to feed the six of us.  We secured the crawfish sacks once more, took down the tied string from the Cypress trees and hoisted the nets back onto our shoulders.  Shelby led the way back out of the swamp, as while a lot of my fear has been cast aside by the bounty we had just scooped, I still didn't trust the swamp from swallowing me alive.  As we were walking out of the swamp, I remember looking at the long lines of people standing on the shoreline as they pointed toward us, making exclamations that I couldn't make out.  I know that we must have been quite a sight, not just with the 60lbs of crawfish that we caught in less than 20 minutes but swamps, green muck covered us from neck to toe.  Now, I know what the change of clothing was for.  Shelby had brought a large amount of fresh water in the SUV and we discreetly managed to remove all of the green muck, change our clothes and headed home to enjoy boiling and eating crawfish along with a commensurate amount of beer drinking as well.  As we were feasting on the crawfish and suds I brought up the subject of those things hitting my legs and giving me a stir and Shelby said it was just the crawfish.

I felt good about myself, knowing that I had passed the first test with my future in-laws and my girlfriend who would one day become my wife of over 40 years.  There were many other wonderful outdoor experiences that Shelby and I shared over the next couple of decades but none that left such an impression on my mind. Hope you enjoyed the story.  It was fun sharing it with you.

JoeyA

20 YARDS FROM IMMORTALITY.

The year was 1964, the day was September 16th.  The location was City Park (football) Stadium, New Orleans, Louisiana.  This time instead of a football game the event was a BEATLES concert.  The Beatles was by far the next great thing in music for my generation and to me it seemed that they easily surpassed the great Elvis Presley in popularity, although in 1964 Elvis was still going strong.

As a young boy, I was taught that if you wanted something out of life, you had to work for it.  I had held a couple of other jobs, sometimes two at a time by the age of 14 which I had just reached when The Beatles came to town. 

Previously, I had sold soft drinks at City Park (football) Stadium and Tulane Stadium during football games.  Back then, all soft drinks were in heavy glass bottles, not the plastic ones you see today.  The soft drink sellers, mostly young boys in their early teen years, although some older men who weren't qualified to do other jobs, sometimes sold these drinks and other food items like peanuts or popcorn to the masses that attended the football games.

The drinks were often carried in wire baskets, six drinks to a basket.  Savvy sellers would add as much ice as the thin wire baskets could hold, in order to keep the drinks cold.  The sellers would walk up and down the stadium steps, hawking their wares shouting, "SOFT DRINKS, GET YOUR ICE COLD SOFT DRINKS RIGHT HERE!"  It wasn't always easy to get people to part with their hard-earned money.  If my memory serves me correctly we sold the soft drinks for about $.20 a bottle back then and minimum wage was $1.25 per hour.  Contrary to what you might think, very few bottles ended up broken.  I guess people were a lot more conscientious back then and cared about their the impression that they left behind.  I sold the peanuts and popcorn and liked selling the peanuts because you could get a pretty good penny for the peanuts and the bags were small and you could carry a lot of them and didn't have to return to the concession stand that often to refill.  The soft drinks, with wire basked and ice could leave a severe impression and even blisters on young, tender hands but since my parents were too poor to provide me with an allowance, I was taught to earn my own money and looking back, it taught me the value of money.  "PEANUTS, GET YOUR HOT ROASTED, DELICIOUS PEANUTS RIGHT HERE!".  I learned early on that a vivid, tasty description sold your item faster than just "peanuts, twenty-five cents a bag".

This particular day, I had heard about this band from Liverpool, England called the Beatles and I wasn't too excited about going there to watch them as much as I was thinking about the large number of people who might attend this spectacle.  I really wasn't that familiar with their music although I had heard them perform on the Ed Sullivan Show in January of 1964.  I remember thinking to myself that their haircuts somehow looked effeminate.  I was only 13 at the time I saw them on the small, black and white television that my parents had in their living room and I kind of liked their music but at the time it was a new kind of music that I wasn't used to hearing and couldn't make up my mind if I really liked them or not.  For crying out loud, their hair looked like a girl's hair style.  Back then, I combed my hair straight back and there were different classes of teenagers.  Some guys were called "frats", short for fraternity brothers while others were called "hoods" short for hoodlums.  Another name that I NEVER see in print or hear about is the word "Pit or Pitts".  I don't know what happened to that particular word as it seems to have been lost in history or perhaps it was just a New Orleans neighborhood thing.

This day I was disappointed at the size of the crowd and didn't really sell that many soft drinks.  I was listening to the Beatles serenade what looked like an almost all girl audience in the stadium, with the girls wailing loudly on every major note and new song that they sang.  Many of the girls swooned over and over, some of them to the point where they had to be removed from the stands and provided with medical attention.  I didn't think much about that long hair right then and there but later on it dawned on me that maybe the Beatles long hair was attractive to the girls and a few years later I found myself with hair covering my ears.

Since the girls were screaming and totally immersed in the Beatles' concert, they were not very thirsty for my soft drinks and since I wasn't making much money I decided to possibly find another way to make a dollar or two.  In my young mind, I was thinking that Ringo Starr's drumsticks would most likely sell for a pretty penny if I could find a way to get them.

I watched for about 15 minutes as scores of young people both boys and girls, but mostly girls as they hurled themselves toward the Beatle's stage only to be rebuked by scores of policemen in blue.  There seemed to be no end to the number of policemen, carrying the swooned girls to safety and escorting others, rather firmly back to their seats or out of the stadium or to the really unruly ones, to the police cars that awaited all those who refused to comply.  Order was the protocol for the day and the police did a fantastic job of keeping order in a very chaotic atmosphere. 

The stage was at the South End of the football stadium facing the sidelines.  The sides of the stage were about 6 foot tall and not steps leading up to them.  I don't remember how the Beatles got on the stage as I was busy trying to sell soft drinks.  There were probably some portable steps that they climbed to get to the stage platform.  The back of the stage was very high and I believe it looked like a wall that would be difficult to climb.  I had set my mind to working on how to snatch the drumsticks from Ringo's hands.  At 14 years of age, I was quick as a mongoose and weighed little more than that but that didn't prevent me from imagining that I could get Ringo's drum sticks.  It was obvious that all of the policemen were at the front of the stage separating the stage and the Beatles from the frenzied fans, some who were absolutely hysterical.  Me, on the other hand, I was calculating and hell bent on getting those drum sticks.  I was at the North End of the stadium and there was NO ONE there except for me.  As I looked at the side of the stage which was about 6 feet in height I decided that I could make the run from the north end of the stadium to the side of the stage and catapult myself up onto the stage before anyone would notice and a surprised Ringo would most likely quickly give up his drum sticks to a stark-raving-mad boy of 14.  This was surely my way of achieving immortality or at least making some money in the money-starved world that I came from.  I was sure that I could sell those drum sticks for a handsome price.

I knew there were risks but before they coined the term "YOLO", I was already living that perspective.  Looking around me 360 degrees, I saw that no one was watching me and no one, especially the policemen were paying any attention to the North Side of the stadium.  The stadium seemd to extend about twenty yards from the South Side goal posts.  That meant that I would probably only have to run about 70 yards, catapult onto the stage, snatch Ringo's drum sticks and back off the stage before the police or Ringo knew what had happened.  I took off at a fast trot and as I approached the 50 yard line, I put on a serious burst of speed, the adrenaline pumping my heart and legs faster and faster.  I was about 20 yards from the stage, already calculating my steps and distance so that I wouldn't have to slow my speed or impede my planned catapult onto the stage.  I was running as fast as I had ever run when all of a sudden from no where, I felt my legs go out from under me.  Someone (a policeman) who was obviously much faster than me, tackled me from behind.  The wind was knocked out of me for a minute and I was immediately hustled to the west side of the stadium, arms locked behind my back, held tightly by two strong policemen.  They scared me with talk of being arrested and I wildly started blabbering about how I worked the stadium selling concessions, apologizing over and over.  With much pleading and promises to not make another run at the stage, they agreed to let me go but if I tried again, THEY LOUDLY THREATENED THAT THEY WOULD INDEED ARREST ME and put me in jail.  At 14, I doubt I fully understood what they could actually do but the threat alone was enough to make me cease an desist.  So much for immortality and a good pay day.  This is a youtube link to a video of that actual day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=593B55Kgu2k

You might even recognize me at 3:42 into the video.  Then again, it could just have easily been some other "insane teenager".

JoeyA