Ping Pong and Pool

The basement was either the scariest place (for me) in the world or where the action was. I can't imagine what it was like for Ron and Dick to have their bedroom tucked at the head of the garage. Was there a dirt floor in the garage, or cement? It had to have been a cold place in the winter because even as the garage later became the recreation room, the tile floors were always numbingly cold. But regardless the temperature, there was an allure to the basement, especially after  Dad managed to wedge in a pool table down there. I remember the night the pool table was delivered - such excitement! Before the pool table, I'd roller skate down there around the poles and over the smooth cement floor, but only in the light of day. Nighttime transformed it into a dark, shadowy hell (for me).

The pool table was a cool acquisition, and not one readily made in our family - Dad must've been dreaming of Minnesota Fats and The Hustler when he came up with that one. It was a hit for quite  a while. Games after dinner occurred nightly where "rack em up" floated up the basement stairs and the usual muffled argument rose above the volume of the Wonderful World of Disney or Flintstones on television in the living room. Dad took himself and the game pretty seriously - asking one year for a jet black pool cue for Christmas. Even as a kid I sense pending disaster when he unwrapped the long pole-shaped gift under the tree only to find a broomstick. I never thought I'd see him cry, but he nearly did in that moment - somewhere under the rage of being punk'd. Thankfully, the pranksters had a nice fancy pool cue waiting in the wings. The lesson that Dad didn't take jokes aimed at him well never seemed to sink in...but, I think he loosened up years later on that score (I have, too).

At some point, the pool table was transformed into a ping pong table by a slab of plywood, and I don't think we never played pool again. A radio was set up on a sideboard and hours were spent before and after dinner playing game after game after game of ping pong. Dick was the reigning king of the game - practicing fancy paddle moves and continually finding those imperfections on the plywood that would send the ball careening off the table at crazy angles as his opponent's paddle swished the air where the ball should've been. I was at least one of his 'training' partners and ended up being a fairly decent player in time. Music always played in the background.  Petula Clark singing "Downtown" or Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" always remind me of those nights.

I'm not sure what happened to Dad's pool table, but I believe that Eddie Willett might have gotten it. It was a stroke of genius to purchase it - even for our small house - because years of good times surround it.