I pretty well lived at the pool hall back in my younger days, much to the grief of my good parents, who thought that such places were dens of iniquity where great and wondrous transformations were carried out on young boys to make them turn from the Lord and smoke cigarettes and curse and swear like old salts from the sea. It was a curious sort of place for certain; and one where the Lord was surely not safe. There was for sure lots of cursing and swearing and smoking of cigarettes and there were occasional bouts of drinking and gambling, but I took the attitude early on that it was all in good fun — maybe not good, clean fun, but fun all the same. I revelled in it — much to the grief of my parents, who were probably right in what they thought.
The pool rooms from back in my youth were what I think you’d call bastions of male machismo, where men hid from wives, and boys from their mothers, and every male of the species knew he was safe and secure from all things womanly. The old men contended that no female had ever set foot in the pool room where I got the better part of my learning. I couldn’t prove that to be true, but my mother wouldn’t even go in the place to get my Dad his smokes when he was in hospital for his ulcer. It was just that kind of place where one step inside could taint your soul for an eterninty in the hereafter — at least that’s what I’m sure my mom felt.
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