Wednesdays with Dad and Sue

I have a daughter Susan, who having attained her life's objective of being a professor, basically has the month of January off. The academic calendar creates a chasm between semesters that puts January out there with no classroom obligations.

She hates it if you say she gets the month off between semesters, because she doesn't really. She doesn't teach, but she still has a slew of other academic responsibilities. Her schedule to do these things is quite flexible, and as such she makes a point of meeting me on Wednesdays for an activity and lunch.

The activity could be ferrying me around for some errands, or taking in a sight. Last week we visited the Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay and had lunch. Searching for other things to do, Sue suggested bowling. I could go bowling, but my left arm is not what it was so I said I'd rather play pool.

Now pool is a game I've seldom played in the past 40 years, but it's a game I played constantly with either of the two brothers I was friends with. I'd play with Dennis after high school, and later his brother David when he came home from military school.

Dennis developed into a superb player and even as a somewhat cocky teenager was so good at straight pool that the hustlers and other grizzled veterans at Broadway Billiards near Time Square would never play him a game of straight pool. These guys were quick game specialists in 9-Ball and 8-Ball.

Dennis wasn't interested in hustling anyway. He just wanted to see how many balls he could run before his opponent got another chance at the table. Only once in a game of 50 points did I come close to beating him. I got to 48 points, but he went on to win.

He knew how to play with precision positioning, leaving his cue ball for the next shot that was not a particularly hard one. He eventually invested in a Balabushka cue stick and even had his own locker at the place. 

Dennis at one point when he was in college and still playing pool at Broadway, came to the attention of the actor Paul Sorvino who wanted lessons from him. Dennis never portrayed himself as a teacher for hire, but obliged for some small agreed upon sum. I never was there when he was giving lessons to Paul.

Dennis, Dave and I played at Broadway the most, but would sometimes for variety take in other places. We played at McGirr's on 8th Avenue, a place that could have been the backdrop for 'The Hustler,' but Ames was that. We played at Julian's, near the Academy of Music on 14th Street, and Jaycee's in Flushing, near where I lived. Julian's, Jaycee's and McGirr's were old-style-three-lamps over the tables and abacus beads strung overhead for scoring.

Dennis even attempted to get good at three-cushion billiards and once entered a tournament against Bill Maloney, a top-ranked played. Dennis had a spot, but never really got close. Maloney became a subject of a Sports of the Times Column and one of my postings.

I never got to play with a "two-piece custom made pool cue" as the lyrics go in a Jim Croce song about Jim ('You Don't Mess Around with Jim'). It was always the house cue for me. And that's how it was today with Susan. We descended on a place in West Hempstead called Raxx near my home and played 8-Ball—basically badly, but with concentration.

Susan was pretty much a babe in the woods with the game, so I instructed as we went along. I was never even good, but as the afternoon progressed a bit past the first hour we each got better. A lot of the touch to the game was coming back to me, but I miscued and scratched too often for my own good. It took us nearly 1½ hours to play three games of 8-Ball, each of us never running more than two balls.

Back in the day, and I mean back in the day—basically 50+ years ago, Dave, Dennis and I pretty much lived at Broadway Billiards, a super clean, well-lit place below the penny arcade on Broadway at about 50th Street.

Mr. Monaco ran the place, and brooked no sleaze buckets or nonsense. He arranged for tournaments, and we saw some of the top plyers of the era shoot straight pool, Cicero Murphy and Machine Gun (he shot fast) Butera come to mind. The games were official tournament refereed games. Eventually Mr. Monaco even installed three billiard tables for the three-cushion crowd of old guys.

My daughter Susan is highly social and knows and remembers nearly everyone she meets. When she worked at Mercy Hospital as a speech language therapist one of her colleagues was Neena, an Asian woman of a certain age who knows her was around the felt and the padded cushions, owns a two-piece pool cue, plays in tournaments, and even travels to Vegas to do so. I've definitely got to meet her.

The place Sue and I chose to play in is in West Hempstead, Raxx, a large pool emporium/sports bar in the Cherry Valley shopping center that can also serve comfort food. There must be at least 30 tales on the floor, blue clothed Brunswick models with dial counters at the ball return side. No overhead beads. but several TV scattered around, basically tuned to the horse racing channel TVG. A pool hall and horse racing. How much of a throwback is that?

The lighting is not drop lamps over the tables, but it is sufficient and directed at the tables. We played in the early afternoon and you really couldn't tell if it was night or day because of the heavy curtains over the windows. Typical pool place—no clocks and no time of day. When you're not over a table, you're basically in very subdued lighting. I call it cocktail lounge lighting.

Susan, being of the iPhone generation took pictures, even sending one of her about to shoot a break shot to her friend Neena, who Susan knew was on her break at the hospital. Neena responded pretty fast and said she had just played in a tournament at Raxx. She was understandably familiar with the place.

When we finished playing and I was putting the cues back an older fellow, who had been on a nearby table practicing by himself, asked me "who won." He sported a two-piece and looked like a decent player. If there is one thing you do in a pool hall it is watch other people.

He had been watching us as well as I was imparting all my knowledge gleaned from my past to Susan. He showed Susan how to get a better grip on the stick at the impact end—make sure your hand is flat to keep the aim steady. He was watching her. Said she had a good stroke. Needed to work on her bridge hand. Watch some videos. Sue was chuffed. I told him Sue will be back.

When I retired I thought my pursuit of running would take even more hold of me. I'd get more time to train more, and run in longer events. Back issues got in my way, and even though much of that has been resolved, running is pretty much out of the question.

I'm tired of playing with house cues and the worn down tips. A decent two-piece maple cue seems to go for about $100. That's easily what I would spend on running shoes, so there is definitely a two-piece cue in my immediate future—with a carrying case. There is even a place near the house to shop from.

So a day has passed and I'm not any younger. I just feel that way.

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