After entering Sandusky’s poolroom, my life changed in a very positive and empowering way. From the start, I had a natural passion for the games of pool and snooker. I observed the best pool and snooker players at the poolroom and noticed what they were doing.

I started practicing pool. No one showed me anything about playing pool at that time. I was all self-taught. I would shoot long cut shots on an object ball on the pool table and then move the tip of the cue to different spots all over the cue ball to see the reaction from hitting each spot on the cue ball.

I apparently had a straight, smooth, soft, level, complete follow-through perfect stroke from the beginning. I practiced thin cut shots. I started picturing a spot on the pool table for the cue ball to end up on for perfect position on the next object ball or for perfect defense. The cue ball started going where I pictured the spot for it to go to. A very amazing feeling.

Within 2 to 3 years of constant playing pool and doing drills on the pool table, I became better and better at pool and at snooker. I taught myself to play pool and snooker left-handed. I was and am naturally right-handed when playing pool and snooker.

I also taught myself to play one-handed while playing pool and snooker, both right-handed and left-handed. At that time, I could run racks of 9-ball one-handed, both right- and left-handed.

My life at that time wasn’t great. I started out life on my grandfather Raleigh Nation’s 65-acre farm 5 miles east of McLeansboro, next to Thackeray, a town at that time of around 250 people. My mother Shirley, my father Dane, myself, and my grandfather Raleigh lived in a small 2-bedroom house with a wood stove and no indoor plumbing. There was a 2-hole outhouse on the west side of the house. There was a water well next to the back door for clean, cold water. There was a wood-burning cook stove in the kitchen and a wood stove in the living room. There was no heat in the bedrooms, nor any fans or air conditioning in the house.

Around 1956, there were 4 oil wells drilled on another 80 acres that my grandfather owned southeast of Thackeray. Because of the oil money, a bathroom was added to the house with other plumbing for water in the house. A floor propane furnace was also installed between the living room and the kitchen.

My dad, my mother, and I moved from my grandfather’s farm when I was 5 years old. My dad had a small 2-bedroom house built in McLeansboro on Hickory Street. The cost of building the house and the lot it was on was paid off when we moved in, so there was no mortgage on the house. My grandfather stayed at the farm at that time. My brother Mark was born in October of 1953, a few months after moving to McLeansboro.

My mother raised me and my brother because my dad was rarely around the house. He wasn’t a good father nor a good husband. He drank lots of alcohol, worked, gambled, and chased other women. He ignored me and my brother throughout our childhood and as adults. But it was what it was. I made peace with my dad inside myself in my early 20s.

My mother was an amazing woman. She took care of me and my brother. She was very caring, kind, and loving. She was beautiful inside and outside and very intelligent.

I spent lots of weekends and summers with my grandfather Raleigh on his farm until he got sick when I was 12 years old. He was my father figure until he passed at 76 years old in January of 1961 when I was 13 years old. No father figure now. My grandfather lived alone because his wife Tida died of pelvic cancer at 50 years old in 1945.

My mother, my brother, and I moved out of the house on Hickory Street when I was 13 years old and into a mobile home right off the square in town. My parents divorced when I was 15 years old.

I attended the 1st grade at Dale Grade School in Dale, 7 miles south of McLeansboro. I attended the 2nd through the 8th grades at East Side Grade School and 4 years at McLeansboro Township High School, graduating in May of 1965. I attended and completed 1 year of college at Mt. Vernon Junior College in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, in 1966. Mt. Vernon was about 25 miles northeast of town. Mt. Vernon Junior College later became Rend Lake College. I had the ability for college but not the ambition.

In between classes, I played pool at a pool room about a block from school. I made quite a bit of money gambling on 6-ball there at Dutch’s poolroom on 9-foot pool tables.

I had worked as a janitor at the McLeansboro Times Leader Newspaper, and I was offered an apprentice printer full-time job in 1967. Four years as an apprentice and I would be a union printer with the International Typographical Union.

My mother and brother moved to Taylorville, Illinois, in 1968 because my mother got married again and her new husband John lived in Taylorville. I moved into my grandmother Morris’s house until I could afford my own place.

In April 1971, I moved to Taylorville for work. The population was 13,000 people. I worked for the Taylorville Newspaper as a union printer. My mother and brother had moved there a few years earlier, and my mother and brother lived in an apartment. I stayed with them until I got my own apartment.

There was a Bakers poolroom right off the square. There were five 8-foot pool tables there. Some of the players gambled on 9-ball. They played money on the 3-ball, the 6-ball, and the 9-ball. Usually around 25 cents on the 3-ball and the 6-ball and 50 cents on the 9-ball. Sometimes as high as $1.00 per ball. I usually made between $60 and $100 in a few hours. I ran lots of racks of 9-ball against the players there. In a few months, they all quit gambling with me.

My mother and her 2nd husband John hung out at Nat’s bar across from the poolroom. There was a 7-foot pool table there. No gambling there; played just for fun. One night, I was playing 9-ball with my brother. When I finished shooting, my mother said that I had just broken and run 15 racks of 9-ball in a row with no errors. I was apparently in the perfect pool zone.

In February of 1973, I moved to Springfield, Illinois, for work. Springfield’s population was about 105,000 people. I got a job at the Illinois State Journal Register Newspaper in Springfield as a union printer. My mother had moved there, so I lived with her until I got my own apartment.

There was one big poolroom there in town called Capitol Q Billiards. It was located above a green stamp store on 4th Street between Monroe Street and Adams Street. It was a 2-story building. At the top of the stairs was a counter with pool cues on the wall behind the counter for sale. Snacks and other items were for sale under the glass top of the counter, as well as the pool, snooker, and billiard balls for the 23 tables in this nicely carpeted, classy poolroom.

There were 8-foot pool tables, 9-foot pool tables, 10-foot snooker tables, and 10-foot billiard tables. They were A. E. Schmidt and Brunswick tables. It was open 7 days a week and was a very busy place with lots of very good pool players.

When you entered the poolroom, past the counter to the left next to the stairs was a 9-foot A. E. Schmidt pool table where the top players gambled at 9-ball. As long as the players didn’t show any money while gambling, Dorothy, the manager with bright red hair, didn’t care.

I ended up, in a few months, beating all the top players there at 9-ball for about 7 years before hooking up with my ex-wife and quitting playing pool for a few years. I won lots of 9-ball games and lots of money.

In 1976, I was gambling with a very good pool player from Decatur. We were playing at Capitol Q Billiards in Springfield. We were playing 9-ball on an A. E. Schmidt pool table for $50 a game. He had a backer. I broke and ran 10 racks of 9-ball in a row without any errors. He wouldn’t play anymore. His backer tried playing with me with the same results.

In August of 1975, on a Friday night, Rudolph “Minnesota Fats” Wanderone put on an exhibition at Capitol Q Billiards. Dorothy, the manager, personally knew Minnesota Fats. He put on quite a show. He talked nonstop. He made some unbelievable kick shots and bank shots. He was a very interesting showman and very good pool player.

Fats lived in Dowell, Illinois, for many years, a few miles north of Carbondale, Illinois, on Route 51, about 44 miles west of McLeansboro. Some of my pool-playing friends from southern Illinois knew him very well.

There is a picture of me and Minnesota Fats on this website in front of the counter at Capitol Q Billiards in 1975.