Pool Hall Dayz - aka Shelly is on Drugs

I was born my papa's son
When I hit the ground I was on the run
I had one glad hand and the other behind
You can have yours, just give me mine

When the hound dog barkin' in the black of the night
Stick my hand in my pocket, everything's all right

Well I just got paid today
And got me a pocket full of change
Said, black sheep, black, do you got some wool?
Yes, I do, man, my bag is full

It's the root of evil and you know the rest
But it's way ahead of what's second best

Just Got Paid - ZZ Top

Disclaimer: all names (except mine and my parents, And maybe yours if you recognize it) have been changed to protect the innocent.

Chris Farley may have lived in a van down by the river, but, as a highly impressionable child, I lived in a pool hall next to the railroad tracks. Sort of. See, my father owned a commercial building in Seagoville, TX pratically diagonal from Smith's Pharmacy, across the big ditch from The Rag Doll boutique, directly behind Wade's Dry Cleaners, & right next door to Mitchell's Meat Market. Initially, he created Seagoville's then only laundromat. He even purchased large quantities of "Perk", stain eraser extraordinaire of the 60's, and gave Mr. Wade a run for his money doing some dry cleaning of his own. They took Perk off the market due to birth defects or extra toes or something. I have no idea. That stuff could get any stain out of any fabric, though...if it didn't just dissolve into a hole right before your eyes. I'm surprised I didn't come out with an extra toe. (Counting my toes as I type.) Nope! All good. As the post-Korean war era gave way to the prosperity of the early pre-Vietnam Nixon era, your average Joe & Jane bought a house in the suburbs complete with their very own washer and dryer hookup. In the name of progress, my father thought it best, wisely, to reinvent his brand. What other kind of business could prosper where a town's lone washateria once stood proud? Hint: the warm smell of colitas was rising up in the air. Guys, put on your best long-sleeved silk shirt and spray your feathered hair into place. Ladies, get that baby blue eye shadow ready to go and and lie down on the bed to zip up your tightest pair of bell bottom jeans. We're headed to Ted's Recreation Center. Cue music: ZZ Top's "Just Got Paid."

Here's the deal. If you want to make a killing in the pool hall bizznass, you gotta stay open until 2 am, especially when you don't have a liquor license. Please understand, we're talking about the early 70's. There were no laws against driving under the influence. There were no laws against driving without a seatbelt. Heck, there was no such thing as a carseat. The Monte Carlo and the Mach IV were king. All the cool high school guys had mustaches and collar length hair. EVERYONE smoked cigarettes because they weren't bad for you (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA). It was a different time and a very different place. Ted's Recreation Center was a first in Seagoville: first microwave oven in an establishment, first video game (PONG), amazing pinball machines, regulation sized AND small pool tables, and the best (only) fooseball in town. All this, plus my father, Ted Stilwell, manning the snack bar 24/7. Ahhhhhh....glory days - right as I was starting 1st grade.

Right now you're probably asking yourself where Shelly comes into play. I bet you just can't wait for the Shelly story, right? Ok, ok....let me give you the amazing Shelly segue! See, it's one thing to have your impressionable 6 year old daughter in your pool hall during the weekdays from 3 pm until about 9 pm. It's an entirely different story to have your 6 year old daughter in a pool hall on a Saturday night until 2 am. Don't even get me started on my gorgeous 5'9" mother. I'm quite certain she was the subject of many a pool hall boy's dream back in the day. But, what about young, defenseless me? That was a HUGE question. If I were lucky, I'd get to spend the night with a close family friend and second grandmother, Birdie Jane Swindle. She was a Godsend. I loved that woman in a way I've never quite loved anyone else. We would stay up until who knows when talking about who knows what, and I always knew to expect pancakes the next morning...with Burleson's syrup. Birdie Jane ONLY used Burleson's because once, years before, when her husband was in the hospital, Mrs. Burleson was there, too, She thought the Burleson's were so nice and polite that she insisted she would patronize their products forever. I loved her tiny little house..... But I couldn't impose on her every Saturday night, so sometimes my parents had to be inventive. Sometimes mom and I would just go home and leave things with my dad, except that one time when we thought someone was breaking into the house. My dad had to rush home & load the shotgun. It was an armadillo. Not our finest moment. I really did think the armadillo said "no one's home" outside the kitchen window. Other solutions included Pop, the gentleman we invited to live in the pool hall to thwart break-ins. I'll blog later about our beloved Pop, though I can explain that he had a room in the back with a twin bed, a chair, and a night stand. Some Saturday nights I would stay in there and do super fun things like read multiple books, draw some pretty kick butt pictures, and act out my own movies (starring either Raymond Burr or Roy Clark, my two TV crushes at the time). There were times, however, we went into clutch mode. There was simply nothing to do with me. So we turned to the most beautiful woman in the world, a high school aged girl named Carmen. I can't remember her last name nor do I know what happened to her in life. If Selena Gomez and Sofia Vergara had a baby, it would look like Carmen. I was allowed to go home with her once. Her mom was a sweet little hug of a woman who fed me CONSTANTLY. If Carmen wasn't there, however, and this only happened once...Shelly was always willing to step in. It was almost dusk on Saturday night. The regular crowd was rolling in, cue sticks carefully packed into leather satchels. The air smelled of Love's Baby Soft and Brut. I saw my parents exchange glances, as if to say, "Crap! We forgot the kid was still here!" My mother pointed at me from behind the snack bar, then motioned for me to come closer. "Baby, sit right here on this stool. Don't you move. Momma will make you something to eat. You want a Chuckwagon?" See, my Dad had that fancy microwave which was the size of a small elephant. He would go into Dallas to the Shepp's distribution center (Schepp's? Sheppe's? Scheppe's???????) to stock up on snack bar merch, including the world's first microwaveable hamburger.....the Chuckwagon. But I wasn't crazy about the Chuckwagon. I wanted a Snicker's. But, having already exceeded my daily allotment of sugar, I was denied. Then someone lost their change in the coke machine. And someone tilted the pinball machine. And someone popped the cue ball on 2 tables. And my father scurried to help. And my mother looked at me and said those fateful words: "STAY WITH SHELLY."

Have you ever seen Ever Carradine? She's Robert Carradine's daughter...of the famous Carradine acting family. Anyway, the first time I saw Ever Carradine on a TV show (she's an amazing actress), I had a traumatic childhood flashback and screamed, "That's Shelly!" Actually I screamed "that's someone else" because I changed her name to Shelly just for this blog. Although, Birdie Jane was really Birdie Jane, come to think of it. I think that's ok since I'm really just telling you that Birdie Jane was an actual saint and the finest person ever known to mankind. But Shelly. She had good intentions. I was sitting on the snack bar stool. Shelly was telling me her life story. She'd been dating one of the high school hotties. Except he broke up with her. She was 300% sure she was going to win him back, except he wouldn't talk to her when she called his house. His sister would answer (this was pre cell phones, pre answering machines, and pre caller id, mind you) and tell her he wasn't there, though she could clearly hear him yelling "tell her I'm not here" in the background. So, if he wouldn't talk to her on the phone, she clearly had no other choice but to hang out at the pool hall until he showed up. Because she knew he'd be there. Then she touched my waist-length 6 year old dark brown hair, looked wistfully into my eyes with her abnormally large pupils, and said, "Wanna go pick flowers outside?"

If I'd said no, there wouldn't be a blog.

We went to the railroad tracks across the street. We picked buttercups. We picked up the rocks we deemed beautiful. Shelly let me wear the braided leather bracelet she'd made herself. We touched the hot, metal tracks. She braided my hair. We walked. A while. It got dark. I looked up and realized we weren't in Kansas anymore. I told Shelly I wanted to go back. Shelly was busy...turning circles in the moonlight with her arms outstretched, her hair spinning wildly. Right as panic was setting in, I spotted the tracks and knew exactly what to do. Did I tell her I was leaving? I don't remember. I just know that as I neared the pool hall, my mother was standing in the doorway and several feathered-hair, silk shirt wearing, mustachioed guys were yelling my name outside. Actually they were yelling "Diana" or "Dana", but oh well! Seeing me back safely with Shelly trailing behind. my mother grabbed my shoulders, looked at me sternly, hugged me fiercly, and whispered, "That girl is on drugs. If you ever follow her or anyone else out of here without me knowing, we will go to fist city and I will knock the pee wadden out of you." What is pee wadden????? One just never knows some things.