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