How old you are...

[Chincoteaguer]

Al

I think you and I could go on for days. I love it. Nothing beats a good poker or pool story.

"Big room over a bar". Right out of a movie. We ought to write a book and make a movie. Our cue mechanic at our pool room has actually written a book. Would you believe his name is Al.

I started playing pool at age eleven. My good friend's father ran the local pool hall. He would let us play for free before he opened on Saturdays if we cleaned the place.

Stopped playing for 20 years after leaving the Army. Started again after "Color of Money" movie (1980). Quit again in 2005 and started back in 2014.

Never was a top player. Just a wannabe. Did play Earl "The Pearl" in 1985. My most exciting match was with Ewa Mataya. Same year. What a beauty. Nice person too.

I can run a few 9 ball racks. At one point I ran almost 4 racks in straight pool.

Now, that's all the bragging I'm going to do.

 

[Clearwater AL]

Ernie,

Wow! How i would love to played against either one of those guys. Yes, you are a pool player

Yea, we could probably write a book of the old days.

Several years after the poker bust I put out two grand (that was a lot of money back then) to get my records expunged for two gambling charges. The other charge is another story.

I play pool occasionally now but I have to play pretty much standing straight up. Rail shots without a finger bridge on the rail... can't stoop over. Sometimes I impress myself.

I learned to play poker in the Army. I mean the word "learned'.

Anywhooo... hope the others don't mind.

 

[Atsugi]

Chincoteaguer gets the big stuffed animal from the top shelf. That was just too funny.

I have a manual typewriter that needs a string. Manuals are very useful for filling out forms. At one time, I found a way to make a PC "writeln > PRN" output one letter at a time as you pressed the keyboard. That turned a Pentium computer into a manual typewriter.

I carried a beeper in the Air Force. It would beep, I would call the Security Police, and they would ask me if I wanted them to release my drunk sergeant or keep him in the cell.

I wish I kept a punch card from my COBOL/Fortran days.

It burns me up that Bill Gates and I are just two weeks different in age.

 

[Clearwater AL]

When cable TV first came to the Central West Coast of Florida it was called "Group W".

It was a box (about 10" across x 6" deep x 3' high) with a rotary switch on the front that sat on top of the TV.

No remote.

It had channels 1 thru 35. Channels 33, 34, and 35 were the premium (HBO, Cinemax and the other I don't remember) channels.

About 6 or 7 years ago I cleared out a bunch of old electronics.

Like you Mike... now I wish I would have kept that.

Back then 35 channels was marvel. Twenty four hour TV was a marvel. The next marvel was a wireless remote. My wife then became a Home Shopping Channel addict. I had to put long cord on the phone from the kitchen wall so she could sit on the couch watching HSC.

Oh yea, the Movie Channels (TMC and AMC) were commercial free. Another marvel.

 

[Chincoteaguer]

Al;

We got our first TV probably around 1954. We could get only one channel and it needed a booster box and antenna.

No color.

The picture portion could be completely covered with a small napkin.

Ed Sulivan, Lawrence Welk, Liberace, etc. were a pain to watch for a 10 year old but then there was wrestling, Mickey Mouse club, westerns, and Twilight Zone.

Dad put it on the dinning room table in our small living room. We had no dinning room.

I can't relate how lucky we thought we were when we got that TV. It was a real luxury.

Ernie

 

[KimT]

I lived in a tiny village in upstate NY. When I left for Florida, we still only got two channels (ABC & CBS.) My father bought a new TV about every two years. I remember having the first colored TV in town and the first TV remote. Sometimes, during a football game, my father would send me up on top of the roof to adjust the antenna (early 60s.) I think we had the largest screen they made at the time which was 25 inches. I remember the networks going off after the 11 o'clock news.

In the early 80s I moved my mother and father to Florida. It was their first experience with cable TV. My father could now watch sports and movies 24/7. He was in heaven. He'd be watching a game on the TV and listening to another one on the radio.