[Superman]

I've got many stories, Dixie. Here's one:

I grew up in a logging town in N. Idaho. About 200 people. We rode our bikes through town with .22 rifles across the handlebars. Etc. Anyhoo.....

The town had 12 bars and they were all on the same side of the street. We'd step from the alley through the back door of Resor's. At the bottom of the wooden stairs was a poo table with leather pockets. The bartender had the rack of balls which he was happy to give us. His nose looked like a big red potato with a surface like the Moon. When we were done, we would pay him for the time. Usually a quarter.

From the street, the pool table was sort of behind a glass-walled area basically inside the bar with a barber and a barber's chair inside it. Barber was usually reading in the chair.

A string went across the room near ceiling height but reachable with our pool cues and the string had beads on it. They were for keeping score.

Also, from the Main Street front door perspective there was a curtain at the end of the long bar. Behind that curtain was a good sized round table. Basically next to the pool table and fully visible to us. Every single time we went in there, the table had between 4 and 7 poker players at it and money on the table. I kid you not when I say they looked like the human equivalents of the dogs in the poker painting complete with hats (bowler, pork pie, striped conductor, fedora, etc) and cigars. These guys looked exactly like the dogs, they were there ALL the time, and their faces were expressionless.

Hey PWD....show me a good pool shooter and I'll show you someone who has spent too much time in bars.

I grew up in the best possible place to be a boy. The town had, and I'm still not kidding here, what is said to be the highest navigable river in the world, running through it. Lined with tallCottonwood trees. Perfect for Tarzan swings. We stole the rope from the floating log booms.

When the bowling alley burned down, there was nothing to do but swim, fish, play pool, ride bikes, play baseball, basketball, football, etc., and fistfight. I smile and sigh whenever I think of that time in my life. I was so lucky.