Mary Kenniston - Part 4 (Action in California, Road Stories, and Life on the Hustle)

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

So Mary, how long were you out in California running the uh pool hall in Castroville, California?

Mary Kenniston 0:21

Uh well, let's see, I got there at the end of 1980, at the very end of 1980, like almost Christmas time. And and I left to move to Vegas in right after the Super Bowl in 1986. So around the first of February, I guess.

Mike Gonzalez 0:45

Okay. So you were out there a little while.

Mary Kenniston 0:47

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 0:50

What happened in those few first few years? Because you know, the the tour was getting going as well, and you probably would have been competing, but uh uh did you go out on the road from there, or did you pretty much were your homebody for those few years?

Mary Kenniston 1:03

Well, I was kind of on the road in place, I guess. There was so much action in Southern California that, you know, it was it was like Christmas all over again, you know, because uh, you know, I really didn't have to go anywhere and I could sleep in my own bed, you know, every night. You know. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. So there's just plenty of action, both bar table and in the pool rooms. But I stayed kind of away from the pool rooms mostly because I didn't want to, you know, pool rooms are where the pool players were, you know. With the real players. Yes. So I didn't want to, you know, blow my cover as of yet.

Mike Gonzalez 1:50

But that seemed like a long time to stay in one spot for you at this point in your life.

Mary Kenniston 1:55

Well, like I say, Mark would know, you know, you get tired of living out of a suitcase. And I just got tired of it. I mean, you know, for for a little over a year, yeah, I was on the road nonstop, and I just got tired of living out of a suitcase. We we used Houston as our home base. So, you know, every time we'd pump up, you know, or you know, we'd get a little tired of it, you know, we would just work our way back to Houston and stay there for, you know, till whenever, and then we would go out again on the road. Uh we kind of ended up in LA by accident. When I first got to Houston, Buddy introduced me to several players, and one of the players was New York Blackie. And it turned out that Blackie and Buddy were best friends. So it was we were like the three musketeers, you know, everywhere we went, it was the three of us. And I had never played for a lot of money back in New Jersey because it just wasn't really that much action, you know. And now I I did get a little bit of action in Tulsa, but it was mostly five and ten dollar action. So anyway, one day Buddy said, Come on, let's go to Baton Rouge. We're gonna let Mary play that girl over there. And so I was excited, you know. And uh so we got in the car, and these are the days of the 19, and this is 1980, and it was the days of the 55 mile an hour speed limit. And Buddy took great care to never go over 55. Sounds like you, Mo. Yeah, but Buddy had a good reason. We had uh contraband in the car.

Mike Gonzalez 3:42

There you go.

Mary Kenniston 3:43

Or as Mitch Lawrence calls it called, what does he call it? Nature's bounty or something like that.

Mike Gonzalez 3:50

Anyway, so we've a little wacky.

Mary Kenniston 3:53

I mean, you know, it wasn't that far away. I mean, it was only like a four-hour ride, but it seemed like 40. But anyway, we finally get there. And when we pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car, Buddy says, Oh, look, there's there's Danny Jones. You know, and Danny was standing outside the pool room smoking a cigarette and talking to a couple other people. So Buddy says, Come on, Mayor, I'll introduce you to the handsome Danny. I said, Okay. So we went over there and Buddy's introduced us and said, uh, Mary's gonna play uh the girl. He says, she plays real good, you know, she bet on her. And Danny says, Yeah, okay. So anyway, we go inside. And they got me playing 50 a game. And they shouldn't have told me what I was playing for. I played perfect until I'd get down to the eight of the nine, and then it looked like I was trying to squeeze a basketball into a, you know, into a like a little hole. Anyway, I'd dog it. I would just keep dogging it. Anyway, we went off for our home bankroll. So we're walking out the door, and I saw Danny, and I just put my head down. But he was smiling, you know. So he says, that's okay, you did fine, Mary. So anyway. So now they tortured me all the way back home, back to Houston. I'm in the back seat, Buddy and Blackie are in the front seat, and Blackie say to Buddy, how about that nine she missed? Remember that nine? And they'd howl, and then they just tortured me all the way home. I was so embarrassed. You know, and they felt terrible. We finally got back to Houston, and Buddy says to me, We're gonna go back there, Mary, but you're gonna be ready when we go back. Well, anyway, they got me in action for like the next month. I was, you know, I was ready. I was playing for 50 a game, 100 a game, $1,000 sets. I mean, I didn't care, I was ready. So now we go back. And I was like, I say, I'm ready, we're ready. And we pull up in front of the place, and lo and behold, there's Danny standing outside the pool room again. And so we pulled up, and uh and buddy says, Hey Danny, how you doing? And and uh he says, uh, well, you should bet on Mary uh this time because she's ready, she's gonna, she's gonna be, you know, I can't remember the girl's name. But anyway, so we went in there and I just robbed her. I mean, it anyway, so we walked out and Danny was didn't look so happy. Turned out that he'd bet against me the first time. So 12. No, he he won because I couldn't make a ball, right? And then when I came back and destroyed the pool room, the whole pool room went off behind this girl, including Danny. Well, anyway, so Danny, whenever he would introduce me to other players, he would always say that I was the only girl, the only person, only pool player ever beat him coming and going.

Mike Gonzalez 6:59

Oh, that's great.

Mary Kenniston 7:01

And then another time we were in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and as you know, it was a military town, and we used to always make sure we were around a military town around the first of the month because that's when the boys would get paid. And uh so anyway.

Mike Gonzalez 7:18

Mark knows that trick, huh? I'd see him nod.

Mary Kenniston 7:21

So anyway, so we go into Dixie Villiards, and I mean this place is an old school pool room. I mean there was spittoons, you know, lined up against the the wall, and I mean it was just a nasty place, right? But anyway, I was excited because I was on the road. They had these like theater seats on one side of the pool room, and they were elevated a little bit. So I was sitting there watching one of the guys play, and this little black guy comes walking in, and and I said, You want to play some nightball? And he looks at me. He says, Yeah, I'll play. I said, Well, what do you want to play for? He says, Five a game. I said, All right. I beat him every game. So Buddy kind of sidles over and he says, Mary, he says, Yeah, you gotta let him win one once in a while. And I said, Oh, oh, all right. You know, I mean, we stuck like 50, 60 bucks, 10, 15 games, you know. I said, All right, so I made sure I hung the nine in the hole the last time, and he followed it in. So I just turned around and looked at Buddy. Buddy just went, buddy just went. I beat him another, you know, 20, 30, 40 dollars, and he quits. And he says, but I'll be back. I says, Okay, cool. So about a half an hour later, he comes back and we play some more, and he loses another 15, 20 games, quits. Never wants to raise the bet. Five a game. I'll be back. Said, okay, same thing. I'll be back. I'm sitting there waiting for him. Now I'm I'm ahead, like 300 or five a game. He never won a game. And all of a sudden, this I don't know if she was a lady or a or a guy, but she now I'm six feet tall, right? I mean, she was like six four or six five in these, you know, in these heels. And she comes walking in, she looks around, she sees me sitting on the wall against the wall, and she walks over, so I kind of stand up and draw myself up to my full height, you know. And she looks mad, she and she sticks her hand out. I flinched, and she I so I struck my hand out and shook her hand. She says, I just wanted to see who I was working for, and turned around and walked out. He was shaking her down every little while. He was that was that was his hooker. Oh my god.

Mike Gonzalez 9:57

Oh no. Alison, see what you missed out on.

Mary Kenniston 10:02

Wow. Did I? So, anyway, several months later we went back and I walk into the pool room, and there's a son, and he ran out the door. I'm not playing you, I've had it with you. Funny. But anyway, we did. I don't know if you want to keep this in the interview, but we went to Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Now, this is 1980. WPBA had a tournament there about 10 years ago, maybe, Allison.

Allison Fisher 10:31

Oh, yeah, yeah, but maybe a bit more than that.

Mary Kenniston 10:34

Yes, definitely Rocky Mount. I was there in 1980. We had gone there because we were told that there was somebody there that I could beat and we could win some money. And we walked in the place, and as Mark remembers, pool grims in those days just had, you know, like a counter where you'd get the balls and maybe a soda or something. When you walked in on the left, there was the counter running situated against the front wall, and there was like a half wall with a swinging gate, I guess you would call it, to go into the pool room, pool room table part. You could see all the tables from there, but you had to go through the gate to get in, and on the gate, there was a sign, no women or n-words past this whatever it said. Wow. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 11:27

Yeah. Wow.

Mary Kenniston 11:28

Yeah. 1980.

Mike Gonzalez 11:30

Not that long ago.

Mary Kenniston 11:32

Yeah, 1980. Yeah, no women or ends past this point. That's crazy. Yeah. Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. So when you girls, when you WPBA went there, I said, well, they must have taken the sign down.

Mike Gonzalez 11:47

Yeah, I thought so.

Mark Wilson 11:48

I was working for the WPBA at that time, and we went to the pool room after the tournament was over with where they filmed Bull Durham, the movie, with all the pool shooting scenes. So that was pretty cool. And then Kim Newsom absolutely killed me in that place. Yeah. Talk a little bit about the Houston pool scene when you were there, Mary.

Mary Kenniston 12:09

There was action like all over the country. There was action everywhere. The place that we kind of ended up hanging around was called Fast Eddies. Do you remember that one?

Mark Wilson 12:20

Yes.

Mary Kenniston 12:21

And it had like a bar in the front with a few tables you could sit and eat at. And a bar with some bar stools. And then when you went through a door, it was the pool room. Buddy introduced me to this old old guy. And he was short and stocky. And Buddy told me in his day he was a boxer. He was a fighter. And he said, uh I can't remember his name. Anyway, Buddy says, he knows everybody. He says, uh, you can get a game, he'll tell you who he can play. I said, okay. And so I can't remember his name now. But anyway, he says, and he pats the seat next to him. He says, Here, sit down, Mary. I said, okay. So we're talking a little bit, and he's eyeballing everybody's coming through the door. And then all of a sudden he jumps up and he reaches in his pocket and he throws his money on the table and all the cash spreads all over the table. He says, and he grabs the guy by his arm, by his shirt sleeve. He says, Here, play her song. She's driving me nuts. And he scoops up the money and he hands it to me. He says, Go on, get out of here. The guy's eyes get real big. He says, Give her the seven or something. You know, so anyway, we did that so many times. The only time, the only time we got in trouble was when uh the player turned out to be Tony Fargo, and he pulled up after two or three games. And he says, Uh, I can't beat you with the seven. I can't remember his name, but we had so much fun. He'd throw that money on the table, those uh guys' eyes would get so big. Smart moves. Yeah. But we went out of the pool rooms. We didn't go so much to the bars because there was so much action in the pool rooms. But Goofy's was one of the pool rooms. Grand Central Station. Cassidy's. We went to Cassidy's. They had several locations. My favorite was Grand Central Station. Do you remember that? Yes. They had the small tables, the four, the eight, eight-footers on one side, nine-footers on the other, and then they had a very beautiful bar. Well, I used to go over there around lunchtime because they had a businessman special, an hour of pool, and a and a drink of their choice, and a sandwich for whatever the amount of money was. And so the businessmen would come in for lunch, and I'd be waiting. So I had a couple of customers, they'd fight over who would get to play me.

Mike Gonzalez 15:07

Yeah.

Mary Kenniston 15:07

And uh so I made it a point whenever I was in town to be there at lunchtime to relieve them of their money. That was my favorite place. Not only because of that, but it was just beautiful.

Mark Wilson 15:19

It was a really good action town, and it was right on the tail end of the oil boom. So everybody had money. People up north that wouldn't play for big money, like maybe $5 a game down there. They'd say, Do you want to bet $30 or not? And it would be the same skill set. And so it was a 24-hour pool room, and it was near the Galleria Mall in a real upscale. I want to say like it wasn't called Thousand Oaks, but maybe River Oaks area. River Oaks.

Mary Kenniston 15:47

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Wilson 15:49

Yeah. And it was 24-hour, brand new gold crowns, beautiful. Flyboy would be there. All the road players would come through, and there was good players, bad players, big stakes, ring games. James Christopher hung out there. Did you know Bel Air Red?

Mary Kenniston 16:05

Vaguely. Yeah, a little bit.

Mark Wilson 16:07

Okay.

Mary Kenniston 16:07

He would I remember Cal, you Cal used to go in there and play the owner backgammon. The owner was uh an Arab, Saudi, I think, or something like that. He had a white wife. I think her name was Pauline. And she was all right.

Mark Wilson 16:24

He was pretty stingy. I played, I played the 24-hour session there, and the pool time was astronomical. It was uh that time it was $92.54. Yeah. I did 24 hours and maybe a little bit more. And I I paid him $90 thinking this is astronomical. Oh no, he wanted to. Yeah. I gave him two dollars. Then I had to give him the 50 cents, which but anyway, it was an action spot. Buddy, but yeah, Buddy was there all the time, and that's where I really got to know Buddy pretty well. He hustled me, but I knew who he was anyway. And he introduced himself as Cecil, which is Buddy Cecil Hall. Yep. Yep. So I said, okay, yeah. And he ended up, he'd let me win a game or two, and then he'd pull it back. We'd be even then he'd want to raise the bet. And I said, oh no. And uh I just wanted to see how would he deal with it because I didn't know what I was doing for sure. And just wanted to see, and then we became good friends. And he had this old terrible Impala, like a 60s Impala that was enormous. And he would go out and sleep in it. Yeah, and he'd win some money, and then he'd go out and sleep in it, then he'd come back in and win some more money. And uh they had a real cute girl running the counter, and and he goes, uh, see that girl up there, and all of us guys liked her. And he goes, Yeah, she wants me to go home with her. And I said, Oh, okay. And he says, Yeah, she saw me snatch my rock back about three rails. That would just do it, yeah.

Mary Kenniston 17:54

But but he was such a whore. He was oh lord, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 18:01

So was there a lot of was there a lot of wacky around at that time, Mark Mark? I would imagine so.

Mary Kenniston 18:07

Anywhere you pretty much have it any time you wanted, but I never could play pool under it, behind it.

Mike Gonzalez 18:15

You know, not for everybody, yeah.

Mary Kenniston 18:18

I as long as I was sure I didn't have to get off the couch, then I would, then I would smoke. You know, but uh I couldn't I couldn't do anything behind it. Well, some people they could, and I never could understand that.

Mike Gonzalez 18:33

So back to California, and we'll I'm sure we'll have plenty more road stories, but uh at some point you you said, okay, it's enough enough. Where'd you go from California?

Mary Kenniston 18:43

Well, I stayed in California for several years. I I stayed down in LA for a few years and then went up north to the Bay Area and worked for Bucktooth. I had like an old diaper bag that we loaded up with with jewelry, and I would just, you know, go out in a t-shirt and jeans, you know, with the diaper bag slung over my shoulder, and it was all beat up and everything. And but it would be loaded up with gold, you know, uh charms that you could hang around your neck, bracelets, earrings. And I would everywhere I went, I would be handing out my card. I had some business cards, and I told them, you know, if you need anything, come here and ask for me. And if I'm not there, just show them a card and you'll get a discount. And uh so after a while, people started coming in. And I was there most of the time. As I kept meeting people, I would get phone calls, and it was a businessman. He'd call me up and he'd say, He says, I don't have time to come to the store. He says, Could you come over maybe with some earrings or something like that? And I'd say, sure, you know. And so I would I started going into office buildings and and just passing out my cards. And I had built up quite a clientele and I would keep a Rolodex. Like if Joe Blow bought his wife, you know, a pair of you know, earrings. Next time I would go see him, first of all, I'd ask him, Well, when's your anniversary? When's your birthday? And I'd write it all down on the card. And I'd call him up a week or so before her birthday and say, uh, get her anything yet, and go, Oh, sh no, come on over. You know, thanks. You know, so you know, I was hustling that way, you know. And uh, so I'd go over and I'd show him, you know, the matching bracelet or, you know, the necklace, or you know, whatever. And uh so and he'd tell his friends, you know, so I built up quite a clientele. But one of my customers was uh some of my customers were Oakland Raiders, and these guys were huge, their hands, like you know, and wrists were huge. Like one of them had like a size 24 ring size, you know, it was unbelievable. And anyway, this one guy came to the store, and so I was showing him around the store, and he's and Tooth came out from the back, and uh, so I introduced him to the Raider. And Tooth had this beautiful, in that time nugget jewelry was the style. And he had this nugget bracelet on, and it was about an inch wide, and it was like an old ID bracelet, and the part where the ID thing was all diamonds. There's four or five rows, and they were about two or three inches long and about an inch wide, and all one carrot stones, and they were all just, you know, perfect stones, and I mean they don't blind you when you you know. But this raider saw it and he says, I want one of those. So I just handed them over to Tooth and uh Tooth, you know, got the order and got a deposit and So I was, you know, real excited. You know, this would be a big score for me a couple of months later. I uh I was at the gas station getting gas. And I'm standing outside my car, just you know, standing there with the pump, waiting for the car to fill up. And another car pulls up and it's a real snazzy car, and my radar gets out, and he's got the bracelet on. I said, Hey. Well, I didn't see he had the bracelet on. He says, Hey, whatever his name was. And uh, oh, Mary, Mary, and he holds up his arm. He says, Look, I just came from the store. And he picked it up. And I said, Oh, cool. So I'm all excited now. So I go back to the store. And and Wanda doesn't say a word. Tooth doesn't say a word. Tooth wasn't there, that's right. He was on a trip. He was on a buying trip. So Wanda doesn't say a word, but I figured she'd settle up with me at the end of the day. At the end of the day, she doesn't settle up, so I give her to the next day. She doesn't settle up. Tooth comes back and I and I told Tooth what was going on. And over time, some of my people had come in and bought things, and they told me about it. And I never got my end. And so I'd mentioned it to her, and she'd oh, I forgot, you know. I went to the back. I didn't even say anything to her. I just went into the back where he had his office. And I sat down. He says, What's the matter? And I told him. I said, you know, that bracelet. I said, well, he came in and picked it up. And Wanda never gave me my end. He said, oh, here. And he reaches in his pocket and he just peels off, you know, you know, all these hundred dollar bills and shoves them across the table. I says, I says, tooth, you've got to talk to her, you know, about this. This has happened several times before. And he just looks at me and gives me this dead fish stare. He says, Well, you know, she's my wife. And I thought to myself, and I thought to myself, I says, well, you know, I'm thinking I either got to stay in the store all the time. You know, but then how am I going to, you know, get new customers? And you know, I can't be here 24-7. And he liked me being out of there anyway, you know, because I always sold a lot of stuff when I left the store for him. I called, I called my mom. I says, I'm coming home for a few days. So she was all excited. Uh home by this time was they had moved to North Jersey. So uh I went home for a few days and discussed it with her. And she says, Well, she says, You got a decision to make. I says, Yeah, I know. I had decided I was gonna quit. And uh at this time, you know, Tooth was talking to me about opening up another store and I could run it and everything else. But if I couldn't trust him or his wife, why would I do that?

Mike Gonzalez 24:52

So what year what year was this?

Mary Kenniston 24:54

This was probably 83. So I was up there about two years.

Mike Gonzalez 24:59

Oh, gotcha. Okay.

Mary Kenniston 25:00

Yeah, maybe 84. So I just got back in my car and went to LA. One of the first places I went when I when I got back to LA was uh the Stagger Inn in Bellflower. And I'm gonna have to backtrack a little. When I first got to LA, I walked in the door of the Stagger Inn, and I just won the world championships in Las Vegas. And the owner was standing behind the bar, and he said, Get some on the mic, and he says, Oh, ladies and gentlemen, the celebrity just walked through the door, world champion, just won the world championships in Vegas. She said, I'm gonna stake her something. Everybody get your asses up there and play, play her some. And I thought to myself, you know, and I looked at, I was with Blackie at this time, and I just looked at Blackie and just shifted my head because you know I just got knocked, right? And uh, you know, meanwhile, there was a stampede. They had three bar tables, and there was a stampede where they're all putting their quarters up to play me. I couldn't believe it. So anyway, I ended up playing them all night. I'd I'd, you know, when I'd finish a game or or when it was their turn, I'd just go to the next table and they'd all patiently wait, you know. And this went on for four or five nights, you know. And so finally they didn't want to play me anymore, but they said they'd play my steak horse. So they played black, they played Buddy, no, it was Blackie, yeah, for I don't know, another week. And so by this time, you know, we'd we'd pumped up and we decided to stay there. So that's how I first got to LA. What happened in Vegas was I won the tournament and Sid Mann, do you remember Sid Mann, Mark? He had the tournament in Austin. Well, he was he staked me in the tournament. So after I won the tournament, I went over and I was supposed to get $2,880. And he he peels off a thousand dollars and hands it to me, or $800, I can't remember what it was. And I and I looked up and said, Well, where's the rest? I was supposed to get like 14. And and I looked, and he just looks at Blackie, and Blackie's looking at the floor. Blackie had been barring against my prize money all week long and go and going off in the casinos. I was so pissed. I told Blackie, I said, Come on, let's get out of here. And we went back to the room, packed up, and I was so mad. And because, you know, we'd come to town with about a thousand dollars, and he'd gone through almost all of it. I could, in fact, one night I caught him, I had my the I kept the bankroll and I was doughing out, you know, fifty or a hundred a day, you know, for him. And uh and I caught him with his hands going in underneath my pillow trying to get the money. So I had to I went up and had to put the money in the cage so he wouldn't get it, right? And so now he'd been barring against my prize money, come up to me, say, give me $50 for cigarettes, you know, or something like that. He was like, Oh boy. So anyway, I said I'm furious. And so I says, Where's the map? He says, in the car. I says, we'll go get it. And it was an atlas. So I I'd never been out west before. So I looked at the found Vegas on the map, and I see LA. I said, how far is LA from here? He says, he says, uh, several hours. I says, well, let's go there. I've never been to LA. So we went there and he had a friend, he used to live in LA. And he told me that he had a friend there that owned a bar in Gardena. So that's where we were gonna go. Said, okay, so yeah, at least we knew somebody there. So we go there. And by the time we get there, no, we left in the middle of the night. So by the time we get there, it's like six in the morning. And so we pull up to the bar, and the only person in the bar was the house, you know, the guy behind the bar. And so he tells Blackie that Jimmy will be here in a couple hours. He always comes in at eight, nine o'clock, reads the paper, and gets the deposit, and goes to the bank. Eight, nine o'clock comes around, and still no Jimmy. And then the door opens, so we both look at the door, and then walks a tall, thin black guy. And Blackie says, Calvin. And uh Calvin goes, Blackie. Turns out that they knew each other, right? From when so but Calvin was just making the rounds, right? So Blackie says, Give this girl the seven ball. Player is set for a hundred. So anyway, after the $100 set, he Calvin didn't want to make it play anymore, but we're friends to this day.

Mike Gonzalez 29:58

That's great.

Mary Kenniston 29:59

So now it's 10 o'clock. And so I'm tired because you know I'd been up since like, you know, noon day before. And so I says, look, I says, I'm gonna go get us a place to stay. And I'll call you and let you know where I am. He said, All right. So before I left, I split our bankroll like we always did, and gave him his half. So I filled the car up with gas, found us a place, had to pay for a room for a week in advance, went to the store because it had a little refrigerator in, got some grocery, dropped the laundry off. In those days you could drop the laundry off, and I think it was 10 cents a pound. You know, for like 10 bucks, you know. Oh, it was a great deal. And and they even ironed your jeans. I mean, it was unbelievable. So by the time I got all done, you know, I only had like a hundred left. And so now I'm I go to sleep, you know, but it's like one o'clock in the afternoon. And I wake up, like, and I called him and told him where I was. He said, All right, well, I'll be Jimmy's here, we're gonna go eat lunch, I'll be there later. I said, All right, now go to bed. And I wake up and I hear, I hear the the key in the door, and it was Blackie, and he had that same face on that he had all week in Vegas. And I looked at him, I said, How much do you have left? And he just looked at the floor. I said, God, I was so mixed. You know, we got like a hundred hours left. And uh I was so angry. So I was unpacking. Now I'm wide awake, and I'm there's no way I could sleep, and I'm not gonna let him sleep, son of a gun, you know. And uh so I'm unpacking the suitcase, and there's a bunch of business cards in the bottom of my. So one of them was a bright yellow card, and it was for the stagger in. I said, How far is Bellflower from here? He said, uh, not that far. Ten minutes. I said, All right, well, that's where we're going. And so that's when we went to the Stagger Inn, and and we ended up staying in LA. Cardena, is that where Robin's from? Gardena is. She's from Westminster, she's from Orange County. But she's probably mentioned Gardena, because in those days a lot of the bowling alleys, the Brunswick bowling alleys, had pool rooms. And so, like little Al Romero, who was one of the top players, he was the houseman at the Gardena Bowl. And so we would go there a lot, and he'd point out who I could play, you know, and because he and Blackie were good friends from the old days. They used to be what they call running mates, and he was in action. But so I told you that, you know, we'd we'd run around to the bars and and we'd stay away from the pool rooms. But after a while, there was a pool room in town in Bellflower called Bellflower Billiards. Not the same one that's famous by this time. They just used the name. The other place was upstairs, and I missed those days that they closed before I got to town.

Mike Gonzalez 33:17

Yeah.

Mary Kenniston 33:18

We walked in and the place was empty. And there was, you know, the the normal counter right there on your left when you walked in, you know, where you got the balls, nobody there. And so we were turn turning around to leave, and I heard the crack of pool balls or the click of a pool ball, a cue ball hitting the ball. And so we both kind of listened, and then turned out they had a room that was walled off from the rest of the place. And that's where the owner was with a bunch of other guys. Grady was there and a couple other people, John Henderson, and uh said, like I say, Blackie had been there before. Now they were playing on Big Bertha, which ended up was a six by twelve snooker table that ended up years later at Hard Times in Bellflower down the street. They were playing a game called Liability. And it was, I think it was six red ball snooker. And and so, Allison, you know, you make a red, then you can shoot any numbered ball. Yeah. And then after all the reds are gone, then you shoot them, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Or whatever it was. And basically it was like a ring game, except if you sold out, you had to pay, like if Mark followed me, I sold out to him and he probably made why I'd have to pay him, and you'd play so much a point. Well, they were playing five dollars a point. So it could get expensive. Like let's say Mark made the one, made the red ball, and then and then the the black. Well, how much is that, Alison? That would be uh eight times five is 40 bucks. And if you now you spot the red, and then let's say Mark makes the red and the black again. So it could be expensive.

Mike Gonzalez 35:06

Yeah.

Mary Kenniston 35:06

So we walk in, and I've never seen anybody playing snooker before. I stuck my head in there first, and then Blackie walks in, and I hear I hear John Henderson holler, hey Blackie, you can get your ass in here. Nobody's barred. Oh, and he looks at me, he says, the girl can play too. Nobody's barred, and the whole place laughed, you know. That's how I met John Henderson, and uh, we were real good friends uh until he passed away about a year ago.

Allison Fisher 35:37

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