One more, really? I have other things to do you know. Okay!

I started playing pool when I was eight years old or so. My sister was even younger when she started. If I had a nickel for every quarter I ever put in those tables in our bar, I would be a millionaire.

I played eight ball, nine ball, rotation and any number of games that don’t exist. It was my life. It took me away from my surroundings and situation for a while I suppose.

I would walk to work from school, do my homework and then start work at the bar. It was a routine that comforted me.

My parents were never home and I was raised by my older brother when we weren’t working. The only time that I saw my parents was at work. My brother and I went home in a cab every night. That reminds me of another funny story that I will tell at another time. Remind me. it’s called the instant taxi.

Meanwhile, back at the pool table, a jerk named Mooney, let’s say, came walking by and took my eight ball while I was practicing my pool game one day.

He sat down at the bar and ordered a drink. Now remember, I am about nine or ten. I politely asked him to give me my ball back. He refused. I knew this guy and all of his drunk brothers as well and they were a load. So I asked him to show me his hand, flat on the bar. Like the dummy that he was, he did.

Unknown to him, I had another ball in my right hand and slammed it down on the palm of his hand with a giant bang that woke all the drunks along the bar and perhaps, the dead as well.

I had jumped into the air and came down with all I had and more thanks to my friend, gravity. Suddenly and without comment, the ball I had asked for appeared and I was back at the table working on my shots.

I was a wild man when I was ten. I ran free and unbridled most of the time and God only knows what I would have been like if I ever had to work indoors at a real job.

As an adult I was always more than polite and sometimes to my detriment. I have never been in a fight or raised my voice to my wife or a stranger. I am a gentleman at all times.

“Never give a gun to a ten year old unless he is well trained and has a solid reputation.” R. C. Hand