#208 Minnesota Fats

I remember a house in Tyler, TX on the east side of town right off loop 323.  I visited this house several times a year to drink beer and raise hell with old college friends.  It was a bachelor pad, complete with a pool table in the living room, an above-ground pool in the backyard, no doorknob to the bathroom, and an out-of-work fridge in the kitchen.  The house was void of decoration, save one poster that hung on the wall.  It was a poster of Jackie Gleason holding a pool cue.

This poster confused me.  None of us watched Jackie Gleason films, and none of us were great at pool.  I asked my friend why he had the poster, and the answer I received was, "Dude, that's Jackie Gleason!"

That answer didn't mean much to me.  I knew Jackie from Smokey and the Bandit and his role as Tom Hanks' father in Nothing In Common.  That's it.  Jackie was no pool shark to me, and I certainly didn't respect him enough to hang his poster in my living room.

Fast forward 10 years.  Tonight I'm at home and looking for a movie to watch.  I surf through Amazon Fire for a prime movie I've never seen.  I search old and new movies until I stumble upon a 1960's film titled The Hustler, starring Paul Newman.  Not sure why, but I choose this movie.  Not 15 minutes in am I introduced to Minnesota Fats, the most feared pool shark in the country.  Minnesota Fats steps up to the table cue in hand and says, "Fast Eddie, how about we play a game of pool."

There's the shot.  This is the poster that overlooked my friend's living room for years.  I'd not thought of that room in a decade, yet memories upon memories flooded my mind.  I slept beneath that pool table once.  I wrestled my friend's brother (aka Jim Morrison) in that backyard.  I played quarters in that living room with a girl who needed a bowl in order to play the game with us.  I was asked if I loved karaoke, because all Koreans love karaoke.  My brother earned his nickname "Pretty" in that living room.  And all that time I had no idea what this poster referenced.

Now I know.  And I wonder if I'm the only person in the group that has actually seen the movie.  The moral of the story is this: watch old movies.  You never know when you're gonna reveal the essence behind a particular time and place.