Patcheye came into the pool room I was working at. I usually worked graveyard shift, which is when the action would happen.
Geese and I went to Philly one time looking for a game, and we saw Patcheye. Geese didn't want to tangle with him and said he preferred something a little easier.
The pool room in Philly at that time was on the second floor. I can't remember the name of it, but you had to walk up stairs on the outside to get into the joint. Very strange pool room, at least I thought so, but what was worse is that there was only one way in and one way out. These are the kinds of things you notice about a joint when you're on the road.
One evening at the pool room I worked in (Champions in Silver Spring, MD), Patcheye sat near the counter, and we chatted a little bit. He was just getting ready to go on the road down South. Geese and I had just got back from being on the road down South, so I gave Patcheye a few places to check out for action. Most of them, he had heard of -- Baker's in Greensboro, NC, Baker's in Tampa, a place in Georgia with a mark named Rock Creek who'd go off for thousands, et cetera.
One place, however, Patcheye had not heard of. It was a tip given to Geese and me by Seattle Sam, which was a pool room in Morristown, TN. The Morristown pool room was located on the main strip in town. I can't remember the name of the pool room, but the owner's name was Frank. He loved action, and he invited any and all name-brand players to play him, always with a spot. He didn't care who you were. He enjoyed playing the big guns in front of a full crowd of onlookers.
What was unique about the Morristown pool room is that it had an archery range inside where you could actually shoot arrows. I had never seen that before or since in a pool room, but I actully used to shoot archery the real way, not with a compound bow, and so I enjoyed that. While Geese was playing Frank, I was shooting arrows. :lol
Unfortunately, Geese, who had no stall capability in him, gave it all he had in three or four games. Though he gave Frank a spot, like most road players would do, he shot lights out, and Frank soon pulled up. So we made only a modest score of a few C-notes. Other players who came to play Frank would leave town with thousands.
Many years later, when I met Earl Strickland, I asked him if he had ever heard of this pool room in Morristown, and he knew it well. As it turned out, the owner Frankie was shot dead by his wife. There's a little more to that story, but it's non-pool-related.
Anyway, I gave Patcheye this Morristown steer. About 6 months later, I ran into Patcheye and asked him if he went to Morristown to play that owner, and he did. I was kind of hoping he'd give me a little jelly for the tip, but he didn't. I guess by this time, all that money won in Morristown was spent.
Also, it is AMAZING that Steve Booth got Patcheye's photo in his interview article. I saw Patcheye about 7 or 8 years ago at Drexeline Billiards in Drexel Hill, PA, and I asked him if I could take his photo, and he said no way. Like most road agents, he liked to fly under the radar.
