John and his pool-playing daughter Susan descended on RAXX for what might be their second of three yearly outings recreating the past for dad. Susan has no legacy pool experience; dad has plenty, and he seems to like reliving it as best he can in the 21st century.
RAXX is a pleasant place in the afternoon. It is far from crowded. The place is clean and the tables are in good shape. The thought was they recovered every table in what looked like a sand color. It was like playing on a beach. Didn't like the color.
Whatever happened to traditional green, or even light blue. I think the table color had changed from the last outing. This is confirmed when the 1/12/26 posting from the last outing is reviewed. Maybe we'll stay away long enough for the color to change again. Or, at least have the air conditioning fixed.
The many TVs hanging from the ceiling were showing a rare set of Yankee and Met day games being played—not being replayed, but live. Both struggling teams won, which these days has become rare.
Soccer would not be on until 4:00 with France taking on Morocco. It was learned this morning that the U.S. team's Christian Pulisic suffered a broken leg in the loss to Belgium. Chris gets hurt quite a bit. With the U.S. eliminated, he'll have plenty of time to recover. He needs more commercials.
We've been to RAXX enough times to recognize the regular afternoon players who surely live there. They play alone, and I like to think they're gearing up for some competitive 8 or 9 ball.
No one plays straight pool these days. John had the thought to start off with Susan to play a straight pool game, leading up to 25. Susan went along with it, but would rather play 8-ball.
Since neither of us can usually work up a run past 2, the game goes slow, and is boring. Susan pulled into the lead, 11-4 , but in the third inning John caught fire and had what would be an outstanding run of 4! He finished ahead of the stalled out Susan.
Onto a single game of 8-ball, which John won as well. Tired and sweaty, we had enough, and called it quits.
John promises to never again propose a straight pool game. That was what he and his friend Dennis played after high school in the 60s. Dennis was very good and the game moved along because Dennis went on runs. John liked to think he could recreate the skill of racking up for the second inning with 14 balls, and leaving a single ball as the "break" ball, that if played well, can be sunk while plowing into the cluster, and allowing the shooter to keep going.
This requires skill beyond anything Susan and I can muster. It takes positioning skill to leave a break ball that can act as a battering ram. Neither of us were good at it. The game dragged. The initial objective of going for 25 points was shortened to 20 to help get it over with. We were both glad of that.
There was only really enough time to play a single game of 8-ball. We like to keep the sessions to about 1½ - 2 hours. Aside from fatigue on John's part, running the clock for two players means more money. We generally end with a $35 tab at check out. Enough.
When will we play again0? Not really known, but the hope is the air conditioning will be working. Otherwise, we might just abandon and resort to games of backgammon in the dining room back at home.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment