Paulie Campbell stories
Paulie Campbell stories
Paulie Campbell Stories
I started playing straight pool in college in Lansing Michigan. Joe Farhat owned the pool room there and really encouraged women players and young players. He held qualifiers for the US Open there, and let me play free of charge. Paulie Campbell lived about 2 blocks from the pool room, with his mom and a whole bunch of brothers and sisters. Joe told him he could play for free as long as he kept his grades up in school. He came in there every day after school, and soon he was running lots of racks with a kind of grasshopper looking stroke.
I went to Elizabeth New Jersey and qualified for the US Open and was heading for Chicago. Paulie was dying to go. He was not very old, maybe 12? But he was a total pool freak, he loved to talk to players, watch players, imitate players, learn from players. Joe Farhat told me he would pay our expenses, if I took Paulie. I did not want to because I liked to party a little back then, I did not want to have Paulie hanging around and besides, he was too young to get in the bars. But between Joe and Paulie, I agreed. Joe made me go meet Paulie’s mother, and get her okay, and Joe extracted a promise from Paulie that if I told him to stay in the room, he would do as I said.
We drove down to Chicago in my Econoline van with our cue sticks and a bankroll Joe gave us. The first day we were there we went to Bensingers, it was an old musty place full of champions. It looked a lot like the Rack n Cue inside, but I don’t think I had seen the Rack yet. Baby Face Whitlow was there and he steered us into someone Paulie could beat. But Paulie had no stall speed, he was woofing and running out and doing trick shots, like cutting a ball in the corner and playing the cue ball off the rubber inside the side pocket. So we could not get a customer to stay with him long. He was tickled to win though, and told me he was going to be a road player when he grew up.
That evening we went back to the Sheridan, and hung out and saw Mizerak and all the champions hitting balls. After dinner, I wanted to go to the bar, so I took Paulie to the room and he promised to stay there. I went downstairs, the bar was packed with pool players having fun. A couple hours later, a hotel guy in a uniform came looking for me. He asked if I was Carla Johnson and said there was an emergency in my room. I had to go see what happened. It seems that Paulie decided to smoke some cigarettes and smoked so many he set off the fire alarm!! The smoke was so thick I could not believe it. Luckily they did not kick us out. I called Joe Farhat, and he told me to hire a babysitter and he would pay, if I had to leave Paulie after that. So I did , and the rest of the trip went smoothly, with Paulie chirping about all the great players strokes, and talking about how he was going to beat all of them one day.
Paulie and Kim Davenport hustle Michigan
Paulie showed up somewhere where I was in Michigan, either Flint or Detroit. I had some spots where he could win, so I took him around to a few bars, and he won a little money before he scared his customers to death. After he beat someone and they quit, he would offer them the 7-8-9 or whatever they wanted to keep playing. I had to pull him out when he wanted to give some of them the break. But he was playing well enough to give up a lot of weight. He told me he and Kim had just gotten back from a trip around the pool spots in Michigan, north of Lansing. It seemed that he would go into a bar alone, beat whatever local talent they had. Then wait a while, or a day, and Kim would come in, looking for action. The locals would want to stake Paulie to play the stranger, and Kim would win. Paulie said they had to crawl out a few bathroom windows to make their getaway.
Paulie Campbell in Action on the Roof of the Ponchatrain?
Later, when I was practicing law in Detroit, they held a pro tournament on the top of a high end hotel, I can’t remember if it was the Ponch. Some tables were set up out on a balcony of sorts. Paulie got action with the player from Ohio whose dad used to own the store with the pool table on the way to Cleveland. Lots of players stopped there for action. The kid turned into a good player. I represented a lot of drug dealers back then, and had some cash in my pocket, so Paulie talked me into staking him for $1000 a set, nine ball. Races to 6 or 8. He was drinking beer and there was a lot of coke around, he lost so fast it made my head spin. But I had a lot of fun watching his long stroke, and pulling for him to win.
The Last Time I saw Paulie
Paulie had problems drinking, and I ran into him one day not long before he died. I asked him how everything was. He told me proudly that he was a father now, he had a little girl. I asked what her name was, and he turned red and said, “ Carlie.” I thought back to the fun we had at Joe Farhat’s place, watching Mataya run out, watching Bob Hunter, all the action. Playing pool with Vicki and Ewa, and Julie Hunter. And Dennis Hatch. I missed those days. I asked Paulie how his health was, he was looking a little yellow around the edges. He said his liver was shot, and the doc said he would not live if he did not give up drinking. I asked him what he was going to do, and he said, well, I’m going to drink.
Carla
