Home and the Plainview Pool Hall

Recently, at the urging of a young friend of mine, who seems to be addicted to the Pool Games on ESPN since football season is over, I watched a Championship Match of 9-Ball, at one of the opulent new pool halls in the Catskills. This experience brought back memories of the Plainview (Homer's) Pool Hall of the 1940s, where I spent considerable time as a teenager.

First off, I should point out -- the Plainview Pool Hall, just south of the bank was not opulent, in any respect. At the matches on Saturday nights there were no ladies in long evening dresses, and their tuxedoed escorts sitting in the shadows watching the games. Truth is, there were few spectators at all. Though sometimes the high chairs lining the walls were mostly filled, they were filled by loafers, or players waiting for a table -- and there were no ladies at all. The pool hall was strictly a male preserve. Even wives needing to talk with their husbands were required to wait at the door while Homer fetched the spouse, and then their conversation took place in the doorway, or outside. I don't think I ever saw a lady in the pool hall, either playing pool or watching the games.

In keeping with the times, Homer's was only a pool hall. In those days the pool hall did not serve liquor, and the bars did not have a pool table -- the grocery stores did not sell meat, nor did the meat markets sell groceries. The gas stations just sold gas. The bakery sold bread and baked products, no coffee -- you got coffee at the restaurants.

The pool hall did sell candy bars. In the summer Homer froze those bars, and it was a special treat to gnaw away at those frozen treats between shots at the pool table.

Homer took his role as "Protector of the Morals" seriously. His customers could not buy beer or spirits at his place, and of course they could not bring liquor in. I guess that made it easier for mothers to let their young men play pool -- and Homer was quick to reprimand a pool player when his language got a bit salty, or explosive over a missed shot. Repeated such behavior caused an offender to be banned, not to return to the pool room for a week or a month, as Homer saw fit.

But there was another area of questionable behavior where Homer was lenient, and that was smoking in the pool hall. Homer himself smoked big black cigars and usually was smoking in the pool hall, and he sold tobacco products at his counter. In those days it seemed that most people smoked, certainly most pool players, and on a Saturday night, when the place was packed, it was often difficult to see from the front of the hall to the back through that dense haze of bluish smoke. At our home nobody smoked and that was the one complaint that my mother had about my playing pool. When I came home from the pool hall, my clothes reeked of tobacco smoke, and she sometimes hung them outside on the clothes line to get rid of the smell.

At the '30s and '40s Plainview Pool Hall, pool was an elitist sport. At the very back of the room were the 8-ball tables, smaller tables, with wide pockets, and 15 large balls, seven solid colored, seven with stripes, and a black 8-ball. The cue ball (shooter) was white. That is where young fellows learned the game. We paid our nickel or dime and made the games last as long as possible. The shots were relatively easy to make, and we had fun. Some of us never did advance past the 8-ball tables.

A little more to the front were the snooker tables. These were larger tables, with smaller pockets and smaller balls (22 balls -- 15 red, a white cue ball, and six numbered balls. The more serious pool players favored this game, which definitely took a lot more skill.

At the very front of the building, was the billiards table. This was a large table, with no pockets at all. This "King of the Pool Tables" was reserved for the very best pool players, who played 3-cushion billiards. There were only three balls in play, the cue ball and one red and one white ball. The object of the game was to make the cue ball hit both balls, but also carom off at least three cushions before it hit the second ball, which counted as one point. It took a great deal of skill---a steady hand and a good feel for the angles, and just a handful of Homer's customers played this game -- and only by invitation.

Homer and his wife, a lovely lady and one of my mother's good friends, lived in an apartment over the pool hall. They had two boys, with an older and a younger sister. The boys, Harry and Ralph were some 10 years older than I and were two of my early heroes.

Homer was not a great pool player. He was always available to fill in as a partner or opponent when needed and was on hand to clarify the rules of the game, but he did not profess to be a skilled player. On the other hand, Homer's two boys were very good players. The older son, Harry, especially was a great billiards player, and Plainview's best tested their skills by playing with Harry. For less than skilled players a billiards game could take a long time to reach 25 or 50. But Harry had been known to reach 50 points without giving his opponent a chance to shoot. A little later, Wayne Jacobson inherited Harry's position of premier billiards player, when Harry went off to the University. I don't know if their skill at billiards had any connection or not, but Harry and Wayne both became Navy fighter pilots during World War II. (Wayne was my roommate at the University of Nebraska after the war. I can still see him lining up for a billiards shot, his one eye squinted to keep out the smoke from his cigarette.)

Even though the pool hall was buzzing on Saturday nights, there were long periods of time during the week, (especially the '30s) when there was little or no business at the pool hall (or for that matter, anywhere else in the Plainview business community. The pool hall could not have been a lucrative business.

Still, Homer seemed to survive. He educated his family. Both boys went to the University before going into the Army or Navy (Harry was the head drum major of the NU marching band.) Homer even managed to buy land near Plainview. It was hardly a farm, probably no more than 80 acres, yet it satisfied Homer's urge to be a farmer. Sadly, Homer was not much of a farmer. He got his crop planted in the spring, but usually did not get it harvested in the fall. He was the only one in the area who picked corn in the spring, just in time for a new crop. That made him an object of ridicule. It didn't seem to bother him.

The Plainview Country Club was a popular place in the summertime. A good many favored the 9-hole golf course. Others fished the spring fed, man-made lake for crappies or bass. In those pre-air-conditioning days, Homer used the lake to cool off, by swimming, and was a frequent visitor to the lake in the afternoons he had off from his pool room duties. The term "swimming" in Homer's case was not really correct. Homer floated. He had a rather large belly and he floated very easily. It was strange to see that "blob" on the lake, complete with a smoking cigar, sun glasses, and the green eyeshade he used at the pool hall, floating on the lake. It never seemed that he was using any swimming effort, but he managed to "float" all over that lake. Usually, he seemed to be sleeping, but sometimes he read a newspaper while he floated.

The lake's high diving platform was some 30 yards from the shore -- just where the water began to get deep. That was the popular place for teen age boys to hang out -- to sun or practice their diving techniques. Sometimes Homer would float in range of divers coming off that platform. At these times it was great sport to do the "cannon ball" as close as possible to Homer, without actually hitting him. The object was to make a large enough splash to put out Homer's cigar. He pretended not to notice, but his built-in radar kept him just out of range of the splashes.

After I left Plainview for the University I pretty much lost track of the Pool Hall -- and Homer. After returning from Korea, Jean and I lived in Plainview for four years, while I worked for my dad and learned the baking business.

By that time Homer was gone, the pool hall had changed hands, Mrs. Haskins had returned to teaching school, my old pool playing buddies were gone, and with family responsibilities, I stopped playing pool. But I often reflected on that time -- those smoky Saturday nights, when we wiled away many happy hours learning the game of pool by shooting 8-ball at Homer's Plainview Pool Hall.