Aug

20

JoeyA's FISHING BOAT BLOOPER

The year was 1996 and my wife knew I loved fishing, and she let me buy a new and rather expensive boat.  It was a 172 Sportfish SCOUT boat with 115 HP engine. It was my first fully outfitted boat. Prior to that, I had owned much smaller boats without all of the bells and whistles. Scout boats are built similarly to Boston Whaler boats, in that they are virtually unsinkable (lots of flotation in the hull of the boat). 

Since I was going to be fishing in the marshes and the coast of Louisiana with my son, my wife and I wanted a "good boat" with everything I needed to get back home safely.

The first day I got the boat I was so excited I had to go fishing. I had already loaded my fishing gear into my truck and picked up the boat from the dealership and had previously told them I was headed to Port Sulphur, Louisiana to go fishing. I had already paid the bill, so they wished me well and off I went.

There is some fantastic fishing in coastal Louisiana.  I was pretty much a novice when it came to boats, having only owned the simplest of boats.  Not only that but I was naïve about the responsibility of boat dealers.  After all, I had told the boat dealer that I was going fishing that day.  Now this boat had just about every feature known to man.  It was the boat of my dreams.

I had decided to take the boat out by myself so that I could concentrate on learning all of the features of the boat and make sure I could handle it safely.  I knew enough about boats to know that you must be careful with them and that the 115-horsepower Evinrude Ocean Pro engine was plenty of power for this particular boat as they normally came equipped with much smaller engines.

The boat had more switches and lights than anything I had ever owned and the dealership didn’t spend any time with me discussing how they worked but I have always been confident (and naïve) in trying something new.  My truck was a new Tacoma Pre-Runner 6 cylinder, but it had just the right amount of horsepower to tow the boat and trailer.  The boat was relatively heavy, but I got used to towing the boat in the one-hour trip to the boat launch and was kind of concerned about being able to avoid hitting someone while trailering the boat to the boat launch, but everything went well.  I kept my speed down well below the speed limit and just tried to get the “feel” of it all.

It was almost 10:00 am and most fishermen know that you want to get out early in the morning if you want to catch fish.  This was going to be a learning trip, so I didn’t care about the time but was excited to get the boat in the water as soon as possible.  There weren’t many people at the launch, and I paid my launch fee.  This particular launch had a back-down ramp.  Prior to Hurricane Katrina, some boat launches had boat hoists that would lift your boat into the water.  Many of those types of boat hoist/launches were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.  The cool thing about those boat hoist launches was that the boat wheel bearings on the trailer never dipped into the saltwater so you didn’t have to be concerned about the bearings rusting over time.  If you used a back-down ramp, you had to be sure to grease the bearings on every trip.

Now backing up a large boat into a narrow boat launch lane isn’t the most difficult thing in the world to do, but at first it can get a little tricky because when you are first learning how to back the boat up, most people turn the steering wheel of the towing vehicle the opposite direction that is needed to steer the boat and trailer into the narrow boat launch lane.  But before you drop the boat into the water, you must disconnect a few different safety features that hold the boat onto the trailer while you are driving down the highway.  Lots of thoughts were flooding my brain, including the fact that the few people at the boat launch had to be chuckling about my back-down skills but I soldiered on.  I disconnected the boat winch connection and the rear clamps that hold the boat tight to the back of the trailer.

Since I was launching the boat by myself, I had to tie another rope between the boat and the trailer to keep it from just sailing off the trailer into the water unsecured.  I connected the boat rope to the trailer and had already determined the rather long rope was ample for the job.  After I struggled to back the trailer down the ramp and not hit anyone in the process, my mind was still racing.  This was my first maiden voyage with this new boat and the excitement was immense.  The boat slid off the trailer without incident.  The boat rope connected to the boat and trailer remained secured and I climbed out of my truck to remove the rope from the trailer and tie the boat to the dock.  About now, I am on top of the world.  Everything was going fine.  I didn’t need any help from anyone to launch my new boat and was feeling pretty good about myself.   As the boat turned to the side with the wind blowing, I noticed a cylinder of water coming out of the side of the boat.  The stream of water looked like that which would come out of a garden hose and in that moment of astonishment I couldn’t understand what was happening.  I had never seen water spew out of the side of any boat before.  I looked at the launch man, an older gentleman with that WTH look on my face and he replied, “Did you put the drain plug in?”  I must have turned 7 shades of red. With all of my thoughts racing through my brain, I had just assumed that the dealership had installed the drain plug since I was going fishing.  (Never assume anything is the best rule for operating a boat.)  Anyway, I now realize that there is no drain plug in the boat and my treasured new boat might sink.  I hoped and prayed that what I had read about the Scout Boats was true as I frantically reconnected the boat to the trailer and pulled it out of the launch bay.  I get the boat up on the concrete pad and water is still pumping furiously out of the side of the boat.  I mean, the water coming out of the side of the boat looked like the water being shot out of a fire hose.  I stood there astonished and embarrassed about this faux pas and started figuring out where all that water was coming from.  You see, on many boats, there is a drain plug that is on the transom of the boat which allows you to remove water that sometimes collect in the bilge.  This boat was equipped with an automatic bilge pump and so when the water level inside of the bilge at the bottom of the boat becomes dangerously deep, the electric bilge pump will pump the water out of the bilge area.  The bilge area is the bottommost interior part of a boat and water that seeps or leaks in, collects there, and becomes stagnant and dirty can be pumped out with the bilge pump.  Because the drain plug had not been installed, water had poured into the bilge area of the boat.  Thank goodness for the excellent floatation quality built into the Scout boat.

It took an incredibly long time for the water to fully drain from the boat and that gave me plenty of time to find the drain plug and install it.  I’ve been told that this has happened to other people and while it might not be uncommon, it is a lesson that I will never forget.  The rest of the boat trip went well, and the rest is history.  21 years later the boat and motor are still working well, thanks to my expert boat mechanic Tommy Wibel, who maintains and repairs my 115-horsepower Evinrude engine when it gives trouble.  Thanks to Tall Paul (Paul Koeppel) who introduced me to Tommy.  He is the best boat mechanic I have ever dealt with.

JoeyA

08-20-17

 

Racism? Hell, I didn't even know the word.

The year was 1962 and it was summertime, and I had just reached the ripe old age of 12.  I was born in 1950, May 23rd to be exact.  I came into this world and was given the name of Joey with no middle name.  We lived in Metairie, Louisiana for the first few years of my life.  Just as I turned 6 and was about to start first grade, we moved to Husser, Louisiana where my dad who had no experience as a farmer, decided that he would become a dairy farmer.  This was back in the day, when some farmers still milked their cows by hand.  My dad did the manual milking for a year or two, twice a day until he came to his senses and acquired some automatic equipment to do the milking.  We were dirt poor but lived on a 100-acre dairy farm which barely produced enough income to feed our growing family of 6 children plus my mom and dad.  Sometimes, there wasn't enough food to feed all eight of us, but somehow, we made do.  We didn't have food stamps or welfare and simply did without.  I sometimes went to school bare-footed because I didn't have shoes to wear to school.  We often ate fried-bread for breakfast that my mom would fry on her wood-burning stove along with a cup of coffee.  The milk was sparingly used because we needed to sell the milk to pay for other essentials.  I don't remember ever going to a doctor and when we got sick, most of the time, we were tended to at home by my mom.  I didn't know what central air and heat was until many years later.  We cooled down in the summertime on the front porch at night just before going to bed.  The only hot water we had was heated on the wood burning stove in a kettle and then poured into a small, galvanized metal tub which we called a wash tub for bathing.  Somehow, mom made sure that our clothes and bodies stayed clean.  When it rained, I remember that I enjoyed playing in the rain but don't know if that was our recreation or just another way of getting a shower to clean up.

Neighbors lived far away, and we saw them very infrequently.  Each morning to board the parish (county) school bus, my brothers, sisters and I had to walk down a gravel road that was about a mile long.  I don't remember having cold feet so maybe during the winter I always had some shoes to wear, probably a pair that my older brothers had outgrown.  Don't misinterpret what I'm talking about.  We were poor but I don't remember our poverty being a problem that depressed us.  I believe at that time in my life, I just didn't know that we were poor and had been rarely exposed to the outside world of what could be.  The "country" as we called it was very rural and we had to chop our own wood for heating and cooking.  My older brothers did a lot of the wood cutting since they were older and stronger.  My main job in Husser was picking up piles and piles of cow manure from the barn yard from which I earned a nickel or dime per load.  You can't imagine how much manure cows can drop in a barnyard unless you've been there.  My dad would use the manure to fertilize the rye grass fields which the cows would graze on when it got to a good height.  The cows never saw much grain or oats, so they survived mostly on grass.  This was before grass-fed beef became in vogue.  The fact that the cows didn't get fed much grain or oats meant that they in turn, didn't produce much milk and so the cycle continued to repeat itself.  

Now we lived in Husser, Louisiana for about 5 years and after my mom got tired of "making do" we moved back to the city where she could get a job and help out in supporting our rather large family.  But during the time that we lived in Husser, I don't remember ever seeing a black man or black child at our school.  This was a long time ago and years before integration began.  I mention this because it is important to note that I had no experience with being around people of color.  Oh, I heard the N word from time to time but didn't pay it much thought because I didn't know it to be a bad word or a good word, just a word of distinction.  However back then in my family, for the most part we called black people, colored people but rarely saw any.  Times were tough on the dairy farm.  We had a two-seater outhouse a good way away from the small tar-papered house which we lived in.  My mom washed clothes by hand and hung them on a clothesline in the backyard.  So eventually we moved back to "the city".  Mom would find a job working at Morgan & Lindsey or a Dairy Queen and always was helping Dad support the family since his job as a security guard didn't pay much.  Dad worked long hours and took all of the holiday and overtime work his boss would give him and that was the way it was.  

The first summer after fifth grade we moved back to New Orleans from Husser to begin another life in the big city.  The first house that we rented was on Hollygrove Street.  We didn't know it at first but this was an integrated neighborhood, but it was a house we could afford to live in.  It was summertime and I had heard a rumor that the country club that wasn't far from our house, hired young men to caddy on the golf course.  Keep in mind that I am all of 12 years of age and have never even seen a round of golf played.  We had a black and white television, but it only worked occasionally, and we didn't spend much time watching the television.

Since it was summer and I had lots of free time on my hands, I decided that I wanted some spending money.  Early on, I learned the valuable lesson that if you worked you would get paid money.  If you didn't work, you didn't get any money.  Allowances didn't exist in my family although I do remember my dad occasionally giving me a nickel for a candy bar at school in the country which I shared with my brothers and sisters.  It was a Friday morning, and I walked the few blocks to New Orleans Country Club which was reputed to have members who had "old money", whatever that meant.  Money was the key word that caught my attention so I show up at the country club bright and early and I wandered around, not know who to talk to or where to go.  Finally, a tall, kind black man asked me, "What can I do for you young man?"  I told him I was looking for a job as a caddy even though I didn't know all that a caddy did.  He looked at my scrawny size and youth and said, "Do you know how to play golf?"  I replied, "No sir, but I can carry that golf bag."  He must have suppressed a chuckle, and I didn't see him smile but he said, "You have to know how to play golf to be a caddy."  I remarked back to him, "Well, you must have another job around here that I can do?"  He paused for a moment and said, "Well all right, you be here tomorrow morning at 7:00 am and we'll see what we can do."  It was a Saturday morning, and I was there at 6:45 am and quickly spotted "Mr. Smith" the tall black gentleman directed me to wait for him and told and pointed me to go around the side of one of the buildings.  I did as he had directed, and when I turned passed the side of the building I saw a bunch of young black boys about my age, sitting on old-time wooden benches.  There must have been about 10-15 children there from age 10-13, and none of them were white.  I thought that was kind of unusual but quickly realized that most of the children who lived nearby were black.  That point didn't faze me at all, but I noticed that there were a couple of spare seats available on the benches but no one moved to signal that I could sit, so I just stood there.  Finally, after a while Mr. Smith came around and informed me of my new job which was picking up golf balls on the driving range.  Back then, there were no machines to drive around picking up the golf balls and the driving ranges often hired young boys with quick eyes and good coordination to pick up the golf balls.  Another thing to keep in mind was the fact that the young boys were required to pick up the golf balls while the golfers were still hitting the balls into the field.  The golfers would do their best to avoid hitting us, at least I think most of them did.   We had to keep an eye on the flying golf balls while we were picking up the balls that had already been driven into the range.  The golfers for the most part did their best to avoid hitting us and we would clean up the left half of the field and they would drive the balls to the right portion of the field and vice versa.  Now I got paid a pittance, but it was more than I had ever had before, and it bought nice cold snowballs which are shaved ice presented in a cone with sweet colored syrups and that kept me going back every Saturday morning.  But there was ONE PROBLEM and his name was Michael.

Michael was just one of the local boys who regularly frequented the New Orleans Country Club for the golf ball gig, and for whatever reason, he really didn't like me.  Thinking back, I guess you could say he hated me.  Now you might say that my thinking is skewed by what I am about to say but hear me out anyway.  Every Saturday I would show up like clockwork and every Saturday I had to fight off Michael's incessant surly stares.  Those stares eventually turned into a fight.  He was about my size and weight, and we gave each other our best without doing too much damage to either of us.  Finally, one Saturday morning, there was Michael looking meaner than ever, and taunted me into yet another fight.  We threw punches and finally, we wrestled each other to the ground. Michael spotted one of those dark-colored, long-neck broken beer bottles lying on the ground.  I had him in a headlock and was holding on pretty tight but he reached for the broken beer bottle and shouted at me and said, "If you don't let me go, I'm going to cut your belly open!"  With my left arm still around his neck, I saw a rather large rock nearby that fit my hand quite well and grabbed it with my free hand.  I shouted at him, "You go ahead and then I'm going to crack your head open like a coconut?"  I didn't have a lot of experience at fighting back then and didn't know that if a man threatened to cut you or kill you, you had better not give him the chance but being naïve, I did what I thought was the right thing to do, at least at that time.  Just about that time, here comes Mr. Smith, and his demeanor had changed quite dramatically when he saw the commotion Michael and I had started.  He bellowed at us, separated us quickly and sent both of us home.  I must have told my older brothers about the fight because it wasn't but a week or so after that and we were already being moved to another rental house. I forgot to mention that the white people occupied about 3 city blocks of Hollygrove and if the white boys were caught riding their bicycles on the streets where the black boys lived, they would chase us and hope to give us a thrashing or worse.  Local residents murdered poor old Mr. Cruppie, the owner of the hardware store on Hollygrove Street when they robbed him one day, not long after we moved from the neighborhood.  So as usual my mom made sure to keep us safe.

I reflect back on those days and wonder if a part of racism is simply buried in the haves and the have-nots?  Regardless, that first brush with what I believe was a case of racism probably had a lot to do with economics but at the time, that perspective whooshed right over my head.  When I joined the Marine Corps, I eventually made it over to Southeast Asia to Vietnam and my best friend in Nam was black.  The only name I ever knew him by was ironically, "Red".  If you see an old jarhead who is dark green out there and goes by the name "Red" tell him to look up ole JoeyA as I've been looking for him for almost 50 years.

Posted 3rd May 2018

 

A Magical Week in Chicago

A MAGICAL WEEK IN CHICAGO.

Approximately 60 years ago, a young boy raised in a loving but impoverished home found out that he had a talent for playing flipper pinball machines.  Every Saturday morning, he would go to the local Mid City Bowling Alley which also had a few pinball machines for their younger customers.  This was in the early 1960’s and playing pinball was very popular.  The games back then cost a nickel per game.  He would walk well over a mile and get there as soon as the bowling alley opened on Saturday mornings.  At an early age he had learned how to make up for the allowance his parents couldn’t afford to give him.  His skill rapidly increased and it wasn’t long before he could beat most of the games, most of the times, earning more games than he could play often running the number of replays up to 15 games.  When he had that many replays, he would then step aside and allow the other kids who had money to spend to play his replay games for a nickel a game.  In one day, he made enough money to go to the movie theater or just spend his earnings on other hobbies that children enjoy playing.

As the years past and he grew older, he was introduced to “gambling pinball machines”.  They were pinball machines that did not have flippers and instead had numerous holes and bumper posts all over the surface of the machine for the silver balls to fall into.  Most municipalities outlawed these “gambling pinball machines”.  The businesses, bars and restaurants who had these machines provided large tax revenue for the cities and states so most municipalities during that time, allowed businesses to have the machines but didn’t allow the businesses to “pay off” or provide compensation to those who won games when they played the machines.  Like most pinball machines, these devices had tilt mechanisms in them and if the machine were hit too hard or moved too quickly the game would be terminated by the “tilt” mechanism.  With quick reflexes and tough hands, a good player could move the silver balls toward the desired holes to win games/money.  As time went on, his prowess increased and so did the number of pay days.  Eventually, while living in Jackson, Mississippi, he became known as Pinball Joey.  One day the amusement company who owned all of the gambling pinball machines in Jackson caught up with Pinball Joey and officially warned him that he was no longer allowed to play pinball machines in Jackson, MS.  That was the end of an era for Pinball Joey but the love for playing those games of skill just got put on the shelf for a while.

Fast forward decades more and Pinball Joey, who eventually became known as Joey With A Tie by the pool players of the infamous Sport Palace of New Orleans.  The passion for playing pinball had seemingly been replaced by a love of playing pool and that began another journey.  David Walters, a friend of Joey With A Tie recently retired from a high-level computer job in the government and was interested in learning how to create video pinball machines and told Joey who by now had become known just as JoeyA about a Pinball Expo in Chicago, Illinois.  The love for pinball had been on the shelf for so long that it was interesting to see that there was still a flame burning after all these years.  JoeyA and David decided to make a trip to the pinball capital of the world and visit the Expo.  Plans included playing in a pinball tournament, learning about the new video pinball machines, and having dinner with Elvira-The Mistress of the Dark, a sensual diva from television horror film theater. 

Since both David and JoeyA also enjoyed a multi-decade passion for pocket billiards, plans were made to visit the largest pocket billiard chalk and cue tip factory in the United States (and perhaps the world) called Tweeten Fibre Company located in Chicago, Illinois.  Little did they know that few people are ever invited to tour this legendary facility which produces Elk Master, Le Pro Triumph and many other cue tips along with the most famous brands of chalk for the pocket billiard industry.  Their customers are International in scope and are the largest wholesalers in the billiard industry who sell to the retailers around the world, who then sell to individual cueists. 

Upon arriving in Chicago at the Expo, it immediately became clear that despite getting back into the swing of playing pinball with a couple of weeks to get back in “stroke”, the both of them would be at a major disadvantage not because of age or skill but because there would be hundreds of different pinball machine games of which they had never played before and any pinball enthusiast knows that it takes more than quick reflexes and eye-hand coordination to play well.  You must have intimate knowledge of the various target values for each particular game and how to magnify those targets to excel at that particular game.  Immediately upon arrival, they decided to practice as much as possible before the tournament but alas, they did not have enough time to prepare adequately and were going to be playing against the best pinball players the world has ever seen.  The event went on for a few days and while David and JoeyA didn’t place in the money, they didn’t come in last place either, out of the hundreds of other players that came there to test their skills at pinball and win several thousand dollars of prizes, including a new pinball machine.  It was a lot of fun revisiting our youth and by the way, there were plenty of gray beards from our era who were also having the time of their life.  A side trip to Stern Pinball, Inc., the leader in American Pinball machine manufacturers was just as exciting as the Expo itself.  We learned exactly how the machines were manufactured.  Our tour guide was a man of extreme knowledge and shared with us, every step in the manufacturing process of the flipper pinball machines.  Some things have changed in the design of pinball machines and some of those changes are quite noticeable such as the high-end graphics that are a staple in most of the pinball games like the new Elvira’s House of Horrors by Stern Pinball of Chicago, Illinois.

The photo above doesn’t do justice to the graphics or the machine.  The visuals and audio in this machine are second to none.  It was such a hit at the Pinball Expo that Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) was brought in for this event.  Cassandra is still the beautiful woman that she has always been and it looks as if she has been able to control time itself as well as a couple of generations of testosterone. 

  Here she is with JoeyA at the Expo.   

Elvira even signed a brochure for MARINES-FIND YOUR PLATOON, a Facebook Group with over 34,000 members.   

You might remember Elvira from televison like this:

 A visit to Chicago is something everyone should do at least once in their life, especially if you like pocket billiards.  Chicago is the home of one of the oldest pocket billiard chalk manufacturers in the world, a company by the name of Tweeten Fibre Company.  They also make some of the finest leather cue tips in the world, with famous brands like Elkmaster, Le Pro, Triumph, Blue Knight, Triangle, Silver King, Rocket Cue and Royal.  Tweeten also manufactures the most popular chalk brands in the world made to exacting standards.  You would be surprised at the brand names that Tweeten proudly manufactures.  It not only includes arguably the most popular brand of cue chalk called MASTER & Triangle but many "private" brands.

The Tweeten factory is a huge factory with mechanical machines scattered throughout the plant manned by numerous employees.  The manufacturing process of creating cue chalk or cue tips is a precise science and they guard their secrets quite well. 

 

David Walters and I were quite fortunate in being allowed to tour the plant, and we are grateful to the owner of the company for granting us the privilege of seeing the insides of this enormously successful business.  Tweeten does not sell retail.  They have large wholesalers located all over the world who distribute their unique products, so don’t waste your time trying to buy anything direct.  One of the things that David and I noticed is that both the chalk manufacturing and the cue tip manufacturing were very labor intensive despite the large numbers of machines cranking out these products one at a time.  The machines are rather fast but very mechanical and employees watched over each of these machines with focused attention.  In my early years, I worked in a plant that manufactured 80-column Hollerith cards, also called IBM punch cards and have an empathy for machines that do repetitive chores as well as the employees who run them.  I didn’t ask how many units were produced each day because I didn’t want to put my host on the spot but from observation, I can say that a lot of high-quality chalk and cue tips are produced in this manufacturing facility each and every day.

 Tweeten also has numerous pocket billiard accessories that they sell to the wholesalers, and some of them are unique products that you may have never heard of since their target audience are the national wholesalers.  Below you will find some of their accessory items that they sell.

Accessories not pictured: Fibre Blocks White Fibre Points Garnet Discs Repair Kit Rubber Facings Marker Stretchers Marker Wire Adjustable Fork Bit Adjustable Points Jumbo Master Spots Small White Spots Small Green Spots Small Black Spots Black Waxed Cords Billiard Room Signs

Litho'd Metal Trimmer Plastic Top Trimmer Duplex Metal Chalk Grip Robber Cover Metal Grip Ideal Chalk Hangar Braided Cord Three-Cornered Sail Needles Tefco Bent Needles Brass Jointed Screw Black Fibre Ring White Fibre Ring 1/4" Black Fibre Discs 1/8" Black Fibre Discs Master Chalk Holder Triangle Chalk Holder

Accessories not pictured:

• Fibre Blocks
• White Fibre Points
• Garnet Discs
• Repair Kit
• Rubber Facings
• Marker Stretchers
• Marker Wire
• Adjustable Fork Bit
• Adjustable Points
• Jumbo Master Spots
• Small White Spots
• Small Green Spots
• Small Black Spots
• Black Waxed Cords
• Billiard Room Signs

• Litho'd Metal Trimmer
• Plastic Top Trimmer
• Duplex Metal Chalk Grip
• Robber Cover Metal Grip
• Ideal Chalk Hangar
• Braided Cord
• Three-Cornered Sail Needles
• Tefco Bent Needles
• Brass Jointed Screw
• Black Fibre Ring
• White Fibre Ring
• 1/4" Black Fibre Discs
• 1/8" Black Fibre Discs
• Master Chalk Holder
• Triangle Chalk Holder

This was one of the major highlights of our trip to Chicago and we were fortunate to have been invited to tour the plant and see how these various chalks and tips are made.  Personally, I have a profound respect for non-layered tips and plan on utilizing the same cue tips as champion cueists such as Ronnie O’Sullivan and Efren Reyes.     A trip to Chicago by two pocket billiard players wouldn’t be complete without visiting the many pool rooms located in that part of the U.S.A.  David & I, early on, visited Red Shoes Billiards in Alsip, Illinois not far from Chicago.  I had always heard about this poolroom and knew that Freddy the Beard Bentivegna made this pool hall his home pool room.  Almost 20 years ago, I attended the U.S. Open One Pocket Championship in Kalamazoo, Michigan and met the owner of Red Shoes Billiards- John Lavin, so it was great fun to walk into the pool room unannounced and just sit there and stare at the owner who didn’t recognize me at first.  John is one of those tough Chicago guys, a military veteran himself, Army airborne if I am not mistaken and runs his pool room in a disciplined if not stern manner.  We were amazed at how well-behaved the customers were.  Signs were all around the spacious pool room, letting customers know what behaviors and dress were allowed and not allowed.  John has a very authoritative voice, something he most likely acquired from being in the military and when he spoke, patrons listened.   David & I decided that we would visit the same day that our plane set down in Chicago so that we would at least be able to say that we visited Red Shoes Billiards.  After a little fun with before starting contest, John and I picked up where we left off almost two decades ago.  He is a gracious host and runs the pool room like it was his own military unit.  All of the customers were polite and friendly and had an appreciation for the pool room and pocket billiards in general.  John invited David and I to play in their annual one pocket event on the next Saturday which had an entry fee of $50 per person with a maximum of 32 players.  One pocket events generally take a long time to complete and this one is called the Iron Man Event since it is completed in one LONG day.   David and I at that time didn’t know if we would have time to attend the one-pocket event and told John that if the opportunity allowed us to play, we would.  As time went on with the Pinball Expo, we realized that more current pinball players had more knowledge than we did about the hundreds of pinball games there.  We were able to finish a little early even though we won some matches.  A call to Red Shoes Billiards and our entries into the Iron Man event were sealed.  David nor I, are still spring chickens so immediately, I put in place a plan to manage my energy and focus.  In the last few years, I have been reading many books on performance as well as the latest articles that appear on various social media sites.  Having studied with a couple of sport psychologists over the years, I knew at my advanced age, I would need to do some things differently than some of the young pocket billiard stars of Chicago.  Fresh in my mind was an article that talked about taking 20-minute naps.  The article suggested that taking 20-minute naps was far better than taking longer naps, because with the 20-minute naps, you avoided some of the deep sleep problems with naps lasting longer than 30 minutes.  The longer naps can make you feel groggy while the shorter naps help you to feel more alert. 🎵  Brother what a night the people saw Brother what a fight the people saw Yes indeed!  🎵  My first match is against a young gunslinger from Chicago, and I lost the first two games 8-0.  I only managed to win one game against the straight shooter and quickly lost the match.  It was kind of a bummer to lose that first match, especially with my opponent running out like he was playing 9 ball.  The tables were in great shape, and were Brunswick 9 footers with generous size pockets.  I seldom ever play on Brunswick tables and regularly play on Diamond Billiard tables at Buffalos on Bloomfield in Metairie, Louisiana.   Anyway, I decide that all I could do is play my best.  Being on the one-loss side, I got the feeling that there was no pressure since no one would expect me to perform any better than I already had.  Sometimes I think about what other people are thinking about my pool game and that isn’t a good thing, but it seems that when I am on the one-loss side I don’t care what others might be thinking.  So, I manage to grind out a win here and there and before you know it, I am getting close toward the end of the tournament and playing better as the night went on.  Those 20-minute naps were helping me to focus against very tough opponents who weren’t taking those naps.  I wound up in the quarter finals against famed Chicago player Piggy Banks who also plays a great game of one pocket.  Good fortune favored me in my match against Piggy Banks and I moved on to the finals against a great player by the name of Sergio.  The finals match was single elimination which meant that even if you came out of  the one-loss bracket and made it to the finals and the winner of the hot-seat (winner’s side) had not lost a match, the outcome would be a single race to four games.  Sergio was a very quiet and methodical player who didn’t take many chances.  I was relaxed and getting tired by that time and I noticed that Sergio was playing me extremely safe and not allowing me any shots at my pocket.  After a while, I decided that if he wasn’t going to take any chances, I would on occasion start taking some chances.   Sergio played me very tough not giving me much to shoot at but over time I became more convinced that I could make some of those shots that people call “circus shots” without risking the whole game.  I occasionally made a few of those shots and I believe it destabilized Sergio’s game and he made more mistakes than he had all night long.  After a very long session, I managed to squeak out a victory and win the Iron Man Event at Red Shoes Billiards.  So, if you want to play in events that wear you down, I suggest that you try out JoeyA’s 20 minutes naps. David & I went back to the Marriott Hotel for some much-needed rest but only managed to get about 6 hours of sleep because David is an early riser.  I normally sleep 9 hours per  night, but I was still jubilant over the previous magical night and didn’t mind the lack of sleep.  Eating at the Marriott buffet every morning is like a feast, so I always looked forward to eating breakfast there.    We still had not visited the renowned pool room called Chris’s Billiards in Chicago and that was on our bucket list so after visiting one of the pool rooms where they had almost a dozen Gabriel 9-foot tables and playing for a couple of hours we decided to head over to Chris’s Billiards.  It didn’t hurt leaving the Gabriel tables (which happen to be one of my favorite pool tables) because of the $18.00 per hour price tag.  We spent $45 in pool time for only a  couple of hours.  I know, I know, two hours should be $36.00.  A little pricey, I guess they recognized our New Orleans/southern accents and decided to take advantage of us.  No matter, we weren’t going to let a little exploitation ruin our trip.    Walking into Chris’s Billiards is like walking through one of the Gunslinger’s doors in  Stephen King’s book The Dark Tower.  It is a trip into the past.  The movie, The Color of Movie directed by Martin Scorsese was filmed there.  A long stairway brings you to the top floor where the dozens of pool tables are located.  There had to be close to 50 pool tables in multiple rooms.   David and I took our time looking around and before we had time to explore the whole pool room, a familiar voice shouted, “JOEYA”!  I was flabbergasted because no one knew that I would be there.  The voice belonged to non-other than Mike Eck, who I had met in previous one pocket events.  I had read recently on Facebook that Mike had retired from the police department and it was great to see him again.  He quickly introduced me to one of his friends called Chicago Fats.  I told Fats that it was nice to meet him and that was it.    We noticed another familiar face, that of Tony Chohan who was giving a one pocket clinic to a dozen or more players and gave Tony a nod, not wanting to interrupt his clinic on one pocket. He smiled, returned the nod and went on with his clinic.    David and I got a rack of balls and headed for one of the tables in the back near where Tony was giving the clinic and made sure that they weren’t using that table.  We practiced for no more than 10 minutes when Chicago Fats, a light-heated, friendly guy boomed his voice across the pool room, “JoeyA, get warmed up, Chicago Fats has got you some action!”  I  just smiled at his shout and David and I practiced for another 20 minutes.  I had never met Chicago Fats before, and I know he was watching David, and I play but I had never seen him play so I didn’t know the level of his skill at pocket billiards.  Then Fats shouted out something from across the large room, directed at me once again.  I motioned pointing to my ear that I couldn’t hear what he was saying and beckoned him to come closer.    He came over very close to me, a large man with a great personality, becoming of someone named Chicago Fats and said confidently, “What do you want to do JoeyA?”  I replied, “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  He replied, “One pocket”.  I asked how much he wanted to play for, and he said it didn’t matter but if I only wanted to play for $25 or $30 a game, that would be all right too.  Now I had lost 1/3 of my sleep from the night before and knew I couldn’t play long and probably wouldn’t play my best pool with so little sleep.  I figured that with the money I had one at the one-pocket event and the fact that David had already offered to go in half with me against Chicago Fats, I didn’t have much to lose.  Gambling at pool has always been just a hobby for me and I never try to “bust someone” (beat them out of all of their money) but I felt like I needed to play one match which might take more than a couple of hours, so I offered to play Fats for $400 in a race to 4.  He quickly agreed and knew then that I was playing someone who had a lot of confidence in his game as compared to mine.   The very first game, I missed a critical easy shot, and Fats made me pay large for that mistake.  He won the first game even though I was breaking and had made a decent break.  The next game, he breaks and not only am I unable to knock any balls away from his pocket and his side of the table, but I can’t even find a safety shot that would delay his next onslaught.  Looking over the table, I concluded that I would have to take a chance on a risky 4-ball combination and try to control the cue ball and leave him long.  The intended object ball came a full ball’s width away from my pocket and Fats had another game under his belt, leading me 2-0.  I knew we were racing to 4 and just kind of settled down with the knowledge that I was at a major disadvantage but vowed to myself that I would do the best that I could under those circumstances. When you accept the situation, you’re in like this one, you have a much better chance of climbing out of the mess instead of digging the hole deeper by doing extreme things.  I finally managed to win a game and I was so relieved.  Now I was only down 2-1 in a race to 4.  That sounded a lot better than being down 3-0, so I prepared to play even harder the fourth game.  Fat’s break was incredible each time he broke the rack but this time I managed to get out of his break without losing the game on one shot.  After a hard-fought battle, I tied the score up 2-2. Now it was the fifth game in the race, and it was my break.  I thought I made a decent break, but Fats was determined to not relinquish his lead and came at me with a fury, first getting out of my break and then making one great shot after another, playing me safe only when he couldn’t shoot my liver in.  I couldn’t do anything about his onslaught that game he won handily and made the score 3-2. The 6th game with Fats breaking and him on the hill, I knew that it was do or die as he only needed one more game to win the set.  Finally, Fats doesn’t make a perfect break and I managed to get out of his break and with a lot of safeties on my part, I managed to squeak out a victory in game number 6.  I was so relieved to have won that game because I could tell that Fats was out to win and I felt very fortunate to have tied up the series 3-3. The 7th game came down to me breaking and both of us only needed to win one game to win the set and the $800 at stake.  I finally had gotten the feel of the table for breaking and made an almost perfect break.  Fats played a safety shot but left me a typical one-pocket, bank from the long rail side and I managed to pocket it and one more ball.  Now I was in the lead and all I could think of was the old saying I had coined years ago when doing one pocket pool commentary, “Get ahead, stay ahead”.  I kept playing safety after safety because Fats was fighting hard now, and I don’t know what was going on in his head, but he tried to use his superior firepower on me and attempted a very difficult 3 rail bank shot with force-follow on the cue ball going three rails as well.  Wouldn’t you know it, he made the difficult bank and the cue ball swung around the table for a great opportunity to put the match out of reach for me and end the match but the cue ball kept rolling and rolling and I realized that one of two things were going to happen; either he was going to get perfect shape to run out the rest of the game and match or the cue ball was going to scratch.  As I held my breath the cue ball slowly made its way into the pocket and now Fats had to spot the ball he made plus another.  Now with cue in hand, I made a few more balls, played a few more safeties, and finally closed out the set.  My good fortune for the week had continued and I counted myself very lucky that day, having bested an opponent that surely had superior firepower.  After collecting the wager and thanking Fats for the super-tough action, David and I said our goodbyes to Chris’s Billiards and returned home to New Orleans after a magical time in Chicago.  I encourage all of you to take a trip out of your comfort zone and visit another pool room where you have never been before and “get in the grease” as we like to say back at Buffalo’s on Bloomfield in New Orleans.   Do something out of the ordinary even if at first, you might think it could be uncomfortable.  A ship that stays in safe harbor will never know the wonders of the world. 12-04-19