The pool players

When Bobby trained me, he spoke of the ball players. Back then, there was a soft ball team. I was never invited to play on that team, in spite of the fact that I was a day driver and a pretty good player back then. He told me that the ball players favored each other, which amounted to cheating. If they'd been favoring him, it would have been ok, of course.

Bobby was in a click of his own of course. He in 2 clicks. He was a pool player and one of the PSHA crowd. If you wanted to be really picky, you could argue there were 2 pool playing clicks, the Wilson's crowd, and the Que-Nique crowd. There is no Dick and Dave's crowd, all the cab drivers in town who drink in a bar, frequent the green and white awning from time to time. In all fairness to Bobby, he was one of the best dispatchers who ever sat behind the mike and nobody ever accused him of not being absolutely fair.

I was probably never asked to be a ball player because the fat man in the office was one of the central ball players was the fat man in the office was one of the central figgures in the management of the team. He didn't like me then, doesn't like me now, and having a winning team was never as important as the drinking and dope smoking comradery after the game.

If I were to rank the pool players in terms of skill, I'd have to put Crawdaddy and Tony V. at the top of the list. Bobby used to be up there, but I don't think he plays anymore. It makes me wonder what happened to Tony V., he hasn't been around for a while. Where do I rank? I usually tell people I don't play. When people lose to me, I hear a lot of, 'well, I don't play 8 ball, or I don't play 9 ball, or I don't practice trick shots, or.....' This isn't a problem since I almost never play. I don't know where I rank, I'm not as good as Bob or Tony.

The Hog fancied himself a pool player. He hung out in the pool hall a lot. I guess he was a player, just not a good one. Dickdro plays a lot, or did, he reminds me of myself as a chess player. He got about so good, and never improved from that point, which isn't all that good.

Pool and cab drivers have definately made Wilson a lot of money. His place is fun, you see all the other drivers who drink, and his tournaments must be fun they're well attended.

The Pinkney Street Hide Away (PSHA) got the wreaking ball many years ago. Delmonico's is there now. When I first moved to Madison I used to go in there and drink. I never noticed the cab drivers who hung out there. There was defiantly an in crowd who knew each other, I wasn't part of it. Powers was another PSHA type. He was quite a character, big, strong silent type, one day he went in to the VA hospital complaining of a headache, and he was dead within 36 hours.

I'm sure that in any city, if there are cab drivers, a bunch of them will play pool.