"They're Gone but Not Forgotton"
"They're Gone but Not Forgotton"
The "Pool Rooms" of my era are gone, I just turned 64 in June, 45 yrs ago if you were lucky enough to live in a major city like New York, Chicago, LA, Detroit, or San Francisco, you would have seen what I consider to be REAL POOL ROOMS. When you walked thru the doors, imediately you could feel the atmosphere, smoke filled, yes, probably dark, maybe, but they all had the same personality, a concoction of buisiness men, hustlers, pimps, bookies, Celebs, this is a hard cocktail to sell. You throw all theses different elements into one shaker and you have to come out with something that leaves a good taste in your mouth, it's not easy. What made it work was the way the establishments treated you as a valued customer. You walk in, Sir, can I take coat?, do you need your cue?, can I get a set of balls for you?, can I get you something to drink. This made you want to be in those maybe not so attractive places. I think players and non players back then were more serious about the game, I can rememeber see and including myself people playing and practicing for hours, not just banging balls, but with a purpose to thier practice. After about 10 yrs of hangout in such a place, I thought, every young man out of high school should 1yr in a real pool room, they would get more of a education that will help them in REAL life than 4 yrs of colloge right out of the gate. But today, most "billiard rooms", are soda pop joints, alot of flash, and no substance. If you were the best player in a room back in the day, you were a real player, you had to be to surrvive. And I think my generation was 25 yrs to late for when these rooms were really booming. If I could only go back!