Born: Feb 18, 1938
Died: May 9, 2013
1P: How old are you now Vernon?
VE: 68
1P: So let’s see, you were born about…
VE: 1938
1P: I think you’re the same age as Bugs
VE: Yeah
1P: So you came up in the sixties?
VE: Yeah, the sixties 70’s, and 80’s. I played all the way up in the 80’s; I played in the
90’s, until I had a stroke.
1P: So you had a stroke?
VE: Yeah I had four or five of them.
1P: Wow! But you’re hanging in there alright?
VE: Oh yeah. That’s what’s got my voice screwed up right now. Sometimes it comes out
plain; sometimes it don’t.
1P: Don’t worry about that with me, my father lost his voice when he was in his fifties
and he’s in his nineties now. So you were a real road player; you traveled quite a bit…
VE: Oh I went everyplace. There wasn’t no place I didn’t go.
1P: But you’re from?
VE: I’m from Kentucky.
1P: Which is Bank Pool country…
VE: It sure is.
1P: Did you mostly travel in Bank Pool areas?
VE: I traveled all over the country. I played everyplace, but I played mostly Bank Pool
all over, but mostly from Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and around that area,
and Chicago of course. And Detroit.
1P: In Detroit, was that during the years that The Rack was going?
VE: Yes. Oh Yeah.
1P: So you got into some of that big money up there.
VE: Yeah, I won a lot of money up there. You can ask Freddie. I won more money, or as
much money as anybody won up there. I started out up there playing a boy from Chicago
that they used to call ‘Black Joe’ years ago. I didn’t know his name; ‘Black Joe’ was all I
knew. I started out getting staked by Jerry Howard; anybody around Detroit knows him.
They used to call him ‘The Syrian Prince’.
I walked in there one day [in to The Rack], really the first time I’d been in there, and I
went back into the back and started hitting a few balls, waiting on some guy to come back
and pick me up. But Jerry Howard walked up to me and said, ‘Say, do you play Bank
Pool?’ I said, ‘Yeah, a little.’ So he said, ‘Come on, I got you a game.’ I didn’t know him
and he didn’t know me from Adam’s house cat. But he went and staked me a set against
this ‘Black Joe’, four out of seven for ten thousand.
1P: Wow, he started right off staking you for ten thousand and he didn’t even know you?
VE: No, he had no idea who I was. So when I win the ten thousand, he got his five and I
got mine and he went to leave for the racetrack. He went there everyday like a religion.
So I said, ‘Well, he might want to play some more.’ But he said, ‘Nah, I don’t want to
fool with it.’ He had so much money it didn’t matter. That ten thousand didn’t mean
nothing to him, so he left and went to the racetrack, and I stayed there of course. A guy
named Jones was staking this ‘Black Joe’.
1P: Paul Jones, from Chicago?
VE: No, not Paul Jones, Jones from Detroit; he was a big money man. Not Paul Jones.
So he asked me, ‘Well, you want to play another set?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘What do
you want to do?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll play you a set for five thousand.’ He said, ‘You just
beat me for ten!’ I said, ‘I’ve got five; that’s all I got; do you want to play or not?’ He
said ‘Yeah’, so I turned around and took that five and played him another set and beat
him out of that. Now I’ve got ten, so he said, ‘What do you want to do now?’ So I said,
‘I’ll play you for ten.’ You can ask Freddy any of this. He told me to ‘take my parlaying
ass back on down to Tennessee!’ He thought that’s where I lived. So I took that ten and
beat him another set; now I’ve got twenty, so now I bet twenty.
1P: Playing the same guy?
VE: Yeah
1P: Did you have to adjust?
VE: I wound up at the end adjusting. But hell, once I got that money… if I lose a set; if I
lose just one set, I was busted.
1P: Because you kept doubling, you were playing for everything you had.
VE: So when I won the twenty, now I bet the forty. When I won that one he said, ‘Well,
what do you want to do now?’ I said, ‘Bet the eighty.’ But he said, ‘No, we’ll bet two sets
at forty.’ So I said okay. So we did that and I took them off, so I beat him out of a
hundred and sixty that day, after the guy went to the race track.
1P: So after Jerry Howard left you played that same guy and ran it up to a hundred and
sixty?
VE: Yeah, Freddy probably knows him; they called him ‘Black Joe’. He was from
Chicago; he played real good. He played about a ball under Bugs. I wound up giving him
a pretty good spot, I ended up playing him like ten to eight those last two sets, but it
didn’t matter, I won.
1P: Was that all full rack banks?
VE: Yeah
1P: But beating that guy that bad didn’t kill your action up there?
VE: No, all it did was build it up. I took that hundred and sixty and started to play
another boy from Chicago, Kenny Romberg. I played Kenny; Kenny never beat me in his
life. I used to play Kenny back when he was running around with James Brown; you
remember him?
1P: The younger ‘Youngblood’?
VE: Yeah. He was running around with him the first time I played him. It was in
Memphis. Me and Buddy Hall were together. I played him up there, it was when
‘Younglood’ just got through winning that tournament up in Dayton at the time. I busted
him again. Brown never beat me; he used to say, “That crazy son-of-a-bitch; all he wants
to do is bet a zillion!” I always wanted to bet it up real good, but hell, why not?
1P: Well you had the talent and you were trying to make a living. So Vernon, where did
you learn to bank so good?
VE: Right there in Kentucky. You learn how to play banks when you’re a baby there…
you do. You learn how to play banks before you ever learn how to play 9-Ball. That’s the
way it was.
1P: So were you around Eddie Taylor at all back then?
VE: Yeah, but I watched other people that can play, too. Taylor could play but he
couldn’t play as good. There were several people up there in Louisville that Taylor
couldn’t beat.
1P: Wow. So who were those guys?
VE: Bob Bowles, Bobby Shrorner (sp?), Charlie Jones, hell there was a bunch of ‘em
there.
1P: Now Charlie Jones, I’ve heard that name.
VE: There’s another one from up north.
1P: A bookie?
VE: No, he might be now I don’t know. Charlie Jones, he used to be a pool player, up
there around Chicago. They call him Left Handed Charlie. He was a good guy.
1P: So this Charlie Jones was…
VE: Was a different one. Around, Louisville. Taylor got busted every time he came
there. Bob Bowles used to spot ‘em. Bob Bowles could play. He could play then.
1P: So Bob Bowles must have been somebody that Truman sort of learned from too?
VE: Yeah, but Truman’s an idiot. Yeah, oh yeah. But Truman was a shooter. He never knew how to play the game.
1P: You mean, as far as squeezing a little?
VE: Playing the game, yeah. Any form. He couldn’t play; all he could do was jack up
and shoot. That’s him…and run his big mouth. I liked the hell out of ‘em, but he couldn’t
play.
1P: So you tried to control the game, defensively and so on.
VE: Yeah, defense. If I had to play it I could. But I was a good offensive player too.
1P: Well when you say somebody couldn’t play… you mean they could bank well, but
they didn’t have the all around game, with the safety play?
VE: Yeah, he couldn’t do that at all. He thinks you can just shoot wide open at
everything.
1P: Because if he makes it he’s just going to shoot it again. But if he misses it…
VE: Then it’s going to cost him. You know two-three-four-five-six balls, whatever it is.
It could cost him the game.
1P: So you don’t like to end your turn with a miss. When you get done, you want to
leave the guy contained.
VE: I want to leave him screwed.
1P: So you might play like a two-way shot, that’s a safety, but you’re not going to leave
him a shot?
VE: Yeah.
1P: Now that sounds a lot more like One Pocket. Did you play much One Pocket?
VE: Yeah, I played One Pocket.
1P: You played One Pocket too because it sounds like you could play safe and you could
bank — and you’re a smart guy, which you clearly are.
VE: Yeah, I can play One Pocket.
1P: So you didn’t just gamble at bank pool, you gambled at One Pocket and other
games?
VE: I gambled at everything; 9-Ball, Snooker, everything. We used to play 9-Ball on a
snooker table, with regular balls.
1P: Like that Pay Ball game?
VE: Yeah, but with regular nine balls.
1P: In like a ring game format? Or just head to head.
VE: Which ever come up. Most the time it’s ring game.
1P: I hear that Denny Searcy was one of the best at that.
VE: Yeah, he was good at that. Denny Searcy, he’s a hell of a man.
1P: So you had real sharp eyes then, if you like that game.
VE: Yeah, I liked it; I could play it real good. You know a guy named Bernie Schwartz?
1P: Know of him.
VE: I played Bernie up there in Detroit. Now you imagine this: Me and him played six
ball on a snooker table. He never beat me a set. Not one set. We played and I beat him
out of twenty thousand at that and you know what he done? I couldn’t believe it when he
said this. He said, “If you play over there on the four-and-a half by nine, I’ll give you the
last two and we can play some 9-Ball.” He never beat me one set of six ball. Never. You
know I would run sets out on him on that table and he never did. I couldn’t believe he
would offer me the last two, and play on a four-and-a-half by nine, but he sure did.
1P: So naturally you took him up on it.
VE: Well yeah. But see, I wouldn’t let him play too cheap. I said well we got to play for
at least ten thousand; at least that. So he dickered around. He didn’t like to play for that
much bettin’ his own cash. But we played and I beat him that set. He said, ‘well, I don’t
think I can give you them last two no more.’ He said, ‘well, I’ll play you another set,
even.’ I said, ‘well if we do we got to bet twenty.’ I’m going to tell you something
partner, I wouldn’t let nobody play cheap. If they wanted to play cheap they could get
somebody else.
1P: But it didn’t always work out like that. Sometimes you must have had to scuffle a
little bit to work it up to something?
VE: Well there in Detroit you didn’t. Freddie will tell you, that place was wide open.
1P: Yeah, you said you walked in there, and a guy who didn’t know you started right out
backing you for ten grand.
VE: Yeah, he didn’t give a shit. He just wanted to watch a game.
1P: And then he went off to the race track, and you turned it into a hundred-and- sixty
grand.
VE: Yeah. I told him what I done. He said ‘good!’ He said, ‘I wish I would have stayed
there now. I lost at the track too, but I had more fun.’ Jerry Howard was a nut, he was
such a good guy, and people couldn’t get along with him that good. Some of them didn’t
anyway, but he liked me.
(pause)
VE: I had to roll back in the back where I could piss at.
1P: Ok, so you’re using a wheel chair?
VE: Yeah.
1P: Bugs has been in a wheelchair too, last I heard.
VE: He has! God darn, what happened to him.
1P: He’s got diabetes basically, you know its catching up with him. Actually I talked to
him today briefly. He had an operation, he’s actually walking a little bit with a cane.
VE: Did he have a stroke or anything?
1P: I don’t think he had a stroke, no. He’s had a couple operations though. That diabetes
affects his hands and his legs so he doesn’t have the strength in them, at all, ya’ know
VE: Yeah I know what that is. I’m a diabetic too.
1P: Oh you got that too, wow.
VE: Yeah, but it isn’t as bad as it could be. That’s one good way I look at it.
1P: So, Louisville has a fantastic bank pool history.
VE: Oh yeah, Truman couldn’t even play with none of them guys. He could not play
with ‘em.
1P: So there was Bob Bowles, I’ve heard of him. Charlie Jones. I think Eddie Taylor did
mention both those guys. And then you said somebody else too.
VE: Yeah, there was a lot of them around there. They used to play all those old timers
and they could play, but hell they didn’t play the game; they didn’t play all defense or
nothing like that. There was a lot of offense, but when they had to play safe they could.
That’s the way I’m talking about playing. That’s the reason Truman never could play.
You know you play with Truman, and you could make him scratch anywhere from three
to four times a game. Easy. Because he couldn’t play.
1P: So one of the strategies you’d have is setting up something for a guy up to scratch
on?
VE: Well you know to play him safe. Truman couldn’t play safe. You could leave him
almost anyplace down there. You know I play him like you play One Pocket — you know,
push that cue ball up on the stack. And with him trying to come out of that, hell, he isn’t
going to hit a ball, or he won’t hit a rail and if he does he’d probably scratch.
1P: So Truman turns the cue ball a little too loose for your style.
VE: Oh Yeah. Now as far as making the balls, that’s different… Bugs was down there
playing him one time, and Bugs couldn’t beat Truman. Bugs was losing. I said listen,
‘you got to beat this sucker.’ You know what I mean?
1P: Is that what you told Bugs?
VE: Yeah. Bugs said ‘well, he keeps making them damned ol’ balls.’ I said ‘well don’t
leave ‘em!’ You know he’d leave ‘em that ol’ long straight back, back there damn near
the end rail. I said, ‘you can’t leave ‘em those. He said, ‘what you want me to do?’ I said,
‘play ‘em like you play One Pocket; start putting him up in the stack. Put that cue ball up
in there where he has to come out of it.’ So Bugs did that and he just started robbing him.
Truman looked at me like, ‘Goddamn you’ Truman said. I said, ‘well, I’m betting on
him’.
1P: That’s interesting. So you’d lock him up on the stack so he had to shoot out of it,
where he’s got to leave something?
VE: Yeah. That’s the way I’d play him all the time. It was a joke. And he couldn’t play
One Pocket.
1P: No, Truman never really took to One Pocket but…
VE: That’s the truth! I mean I like the shit out of him you understand, but I’m just telling
the truth about him, he couldn’t think like that. He didn’t have no patience at all.
1P: He’s not a patient mover kind of guy?
VE: No, he’s just a dead upright shooter and you can’t always win doing that.
1P: So if you didn’t like Truman’s open style too much, who’s a banker that you did like
their game?
VE: I like Bugs game. He had a good game and he wasn’t wide open all the time. You
know Romberg, he could play too. Freddie could play a little bit; Freddie would lock the
sucker up if he could. I’ve known Freddie since he was young you know what I mean,
real young. Me and Freddie always got along good. I always told him, I said “I don’t
want your money.” He’d say, ‘come ‘n get it.’
1P: How about Donnie Anderson?
VE: Donnie could play too. Donnie would rob Truman every time he’d come there;
every time he played Truman he robbed him.
1P: So Donnie would gamble too?
VE: Yeah. They didn’t play for much, maybe like a thousand dollars, something like
that.
1P: So up in Detroit you ran into some big money up there. Where else did get some
good action?
VE: Oh I found action — you can ask anybody that knows me. I got big action
everyplace I went; pretty damn near, anyway. I always had that ability to make ‘em bet.
1P: They didn’t really know who you were most of the time, right?
VE: No, no they might know me by another name. Ben, Bernie, Ed, you know
something like that. They didn’t even know my real name you know. I never played in a
tournament so they never really could find out.
1P: So they would assume that if they never heard of you, then you couldn’t be that
good.
VE: Right. See I’ll tell ya’ just like I told ‘em back then. You know what the strongest
hustle is, in the world? Do you know?
1P: No.
VE: Tell ‘em the truth. I’m telling you, I’ve done it all my life. I tell ‘em I say, ‘you
can’t beat me,’ and I’d laugh at ‘em. They wouldn’t believe it. I’d say ‘you can’t beat me, if you could, you’d bet somethin’. You won’t bet nothing so I got to go.’ Then I’d act like
I was going to leave. They’d say ‘well how much you want to bet.’ I’d say ‘I’ll play you
something cheap, five hundred a game, three hundred a game — something like that,
something cheap.’ I always made ‘em bet. And you know they always thought since I
was just a damned old country boy that I couldn’t do nothing.
1P: What they didn’t realize is that besides being able to bank you were one of the
smarter players.
VE: Well that’s the reason I used to tell ‘em the truth. Listen, there’s nobody out there
that believes the truth. They just won’t.
1P: Yeah. That is funny. I remember Eddie Taylor did that a little bit too. He would say,
‘I can beat anybody,’ and that sort of thing.
VE: Yeah but he would say his name, I wouldn’t. I would watch a guy play for awhile
and he’d say, ‘I’m playing good aren’t I.’ I’d say, ‘yeah you play pretty fair.’ He would
say, ‘what do you mean pretty fair.’ I’d say, ‘hell, if I was playing pool — I haven’t
played pool in a long time — if I was playing I could beat your ass.’ You know what I
mean, something like that. I’d say ‘you’d have no chance; I can see the way you play you
couldn’t beat me.’ If course I could whup his ass.
1P: And of course his friends are listening, because they think he’s the best around too.
VE: Yeah. That’s what I used to tell them all the time, you know. Then after I beat ’em,
he’d say, ‘you hustled me.’ I said, ‘no I didn’t.’ He said, ‘you’re a liar.’ I said, ‘I told you
that you couldn’t win, and you didn’t believe me.’ I said, ‘Do you believe it now?’
1P: So did that help save your ass now and then?
VE: Well, yeah a little bit. I didn’t really care anyway. You know we was alright, they
could say or do anything they wanted to.
1P: You must have got threatened sometimes…
VE: Well I had some pretty good times. I mean some rough times.
1P: Yeah you must have.
VE: I had it to where I had to come out with the stuff. You know, get out of a place. I’ll
tell you, we had some heck of a times. I used to go into places where a white man
wouldn’t go.
1P: Oh yeah. And because of the strong banking tradition in the black poolrooms too.
VE: Yeah, that’s where I went at. They’d say ‘you want to play someone?’ I’d say, ‘I
want to play some run out 9-Ball.’ That’s what I’d tell them. They’d say, ‘hell we don’t
want to play that. Play you some One Pocket, some banks, something where you got to
use your head,’ is what they said. ‘Well okay,’ I said, ‘surely as young as you is you don’t
think you’re smarter than me?’ I’m telling you, I had some hell of times out there; some
close shaves.
1P: Close shaves?
VE: Yeah some close ones. But that’s all right; I didn’t mind it.
1P Yeah, you kind of enjoyed the adventure huh?
VE: Yeah, I did like it.
1P: Now you were saying you play some One Pocket too.
VE: Yeah. You know who my first One Pocket game was with?
1P: I’m going to guess maybe Cleo Vaughn or Sonny Springer.
VE: No, they weren’t good enough. The first guy that I played with, me and Buddy Hall
went to Cincinnati and guess who I played up there?
1P: You played Clem then?
VE: That’s exactly right.
1P: Clem played the kind of style you’re talking about where he would stick you against
the rack and all.
VE: Well, we were playing One Pocket, but at that time I didn’t know anything about
One Pocket. Buddy will tell you that. I don’t know how I done it but we had drove up
there and I had $40, that’s all I had. And Clem said ‘how much you want to play for?’
And I said ‘$40 a game.’ So that’s what we played for was $40, and I wound up beaten
him real good. We’d raise it up, and I’d beat him again. See at that time I didn’t know one
thing about moving — I mean absolutely nothing. But I didn’t think there was a ball they
could put up there that I couldn’t make so whenever he would leave me some ol’ long
straight back or something, I’d knock it in and run out. I didn’t know what I was doing. I
mean there I was an idiot (unintelligible14:08) That’s exactly what happened; you can ask
Buddy Hall about it. I didn’t even know how to play One Pocket. I didn’t even know the
first thing about playing safe, hardly. I just knew he had one side, and I had the other;
that’s all I knew.
1P: But you could bank balls real well, and you could run out?
VE: Oh yeah.
1P: So you just fired away… I mean you see games sometimes where people play what
looks like the wrong shot, but then they make it and out they go.
VE: Well, that’s what I did. I’d make the wrong shots. I know that now, I mean after
that, once I learned how to play a little bit. But back then I was shooting all the wrong
shots, but it didn’t make a difference because I was makin’ ‘em.
1P: But it sounds like eventually you ended up learning a little bit of playing in the style
that Clem liked to play.
VE: Yes, but Clem knew a lot more about the game than me at the time; I mean a lot
more, like day and night difference. He just couldn’t fade my shooting ability. What it
was is he would leave me some long shot or some kind of ol’ crazy cut shot and hell I’d
go for it. I didn’t know you wasn’t supposed to. I thought just shoot ‘em in and run out. I
was an idiot really but I was a shooting idiot, ya’ know. I used to play another guy up there in Louisville. He was from Berea, Kentucky. He used to play tournaments and
everything. Clyde Childress. I played Clyde all the time. Clyde never beat me, never.
After we would get through playing I would give him pool lessons, show you how to
make certain shots, because he didn’t know how to make them. And I’d show him how to
make ‘em. And he’d cuss me like a dog. ‘You God damn old son of a bitch’ he’d say,
‘you beat me out of my money and then you give me a pool lesson.’ He said, ‘One of
these days I’ll learn enough to beat you and when I do I’ll pluck you to death.’ He was
very competitive, Clyde was. Buddy was with me a lot of times when I played.
1P: Buddy turned into a real good banker himself, didn’t he?
VE: Yeah, pretty fair.
1P: Of course he plays all games well, but he picked a little bit of that up from you?
VE: Well I guess so.
1P: He was also around Eddie Taylor too, down there in Shreveport.
VE: You know I thought the world of Taylor, but there were certain people he couldn’t
beat. There was nobody in Kentucky that could beat me, nobody. I tell you what, I
played a lot of places, and if you find one person that ever beat me playing even Banks,
I’ll kiss your ass.
1P: Okay [laughs]
VE: I mean one, just find one.
1P: So in your travels did you run into Cannonball?
VE: Oh hell yeah, I played Cannonball several times. We played everything: 9-Ball, One
Pocket, Banks. Yeah, I liked him.
1P: I guess he was a real good player; I never saw him.
VE: He was a good player but I’ll tell you what. He didn’t know anything about quitting.
I mean you had to beat him; you know he wasn’t going to ever lay down; you had to beat
him.
1P: Did you ever play Youngblood the older guy?
VE: I don’t remember if I played him or not.
1P: I think it would have been in Chicago. I don’t think he traveled that much.
VE: I might have played him in Chicago. I don’t remember though. But I know I played
everybody that would gamble up there.
1P: Now you must have bumped into another guy that didn’t play in any tournaments —
Don Willis.
VE: Yeah, Don Willis could play. He sure could, but he never did mess with me.
1P: He didn’t want to play you banks or One Pocket and you probably stayed away from
him at 9-Ball?
VE: Well not really, I had other games. I wouldn’t go in to challenge him; I wasn’t that
stupid. I would always pick out somebody with money; I didn’t pick out no broke dude,
you know what I mean.
1P: No, there was no point in that.
VE: Shit no, I had a family to raise.
1P: How many kids do you have, Vernon?
VE: At the time, back then, I had eight I think.
1P: Wow, that’s definitely a lot of mouths to feed!
VE: Well it sure is. I put five of them through college. I had three of them at a time in
college!
1P: I got one right now and that’s painful… That’s impressive that you did that.
VE: I had to get out and make money. I never wanted them to work; all I wanted them to
do was go to school and learn. I got out and did the work. I’ve bought them cars, a place
to stay and everything.
1P: And just from playing pool basically, right?
VE: Yeah.
1P: Did you get into cards and that sort of thing too?
VE: No, I knew people that could do things in cards, and I couldn’t do them. So I didn’t
fool with them.
1P: Yeah, there are some guys who have some other little angle, pitching quarters or you
name it, they’ve got it. You had some proposition shots though.
VE: Oh, I had a bunch of them.
1P: I know Freddie mentions a couple of them in his book.
VE: Yeah, I used to bet loads on that; I bet a ton of money on them.
1P: I think he shows two bank shots where you got the cue ball frozen on the long rail
and the object ball frozen on the long rail, and your banking — one across side and one
across corner.
VE: It’s like you’re going out of the corner pocket, okay. Go to your first diamond. On
the rail, then you go up to the side pocket. Then you take the ball and push it past the
side on the rail, past the side pocket. On this side it was too easy so you go across the side
pocket, now you bank that one across the side.
1P: So you’re banking it backwards?
VE: Yeah.
1P: Wow.
VE: I used to bet all my money; I busted Taylor and all of them on that. They said it
can’t be done and I’d bet all my cash on it.
1P: How many tries would you take?
VE: Oh they would give me…. I would ask for something ridiculous like 100 or
something. And they would give me that and it wouldn’t take, oh I’d say if I had a bad
day it would take maybe four or five.
1P: Four or five tries?
VE: Yeah.
1P: Wow.
VE: I’ll tell you what, I’ve been up there and emptied it all out. We were up there in
Springfield Ohio, down at the bank tournament up there and I set it up. I said ‘hell, I’ll
just bank this ball.’ They said, ‘well I can bank that one.’ I’d say, ‘Okay, cross side,’ I’d
just say something like that, you know. And they’d say, ‘It can’t be done. You can’t do
this, you can’t do that.’ Taylor said, ‘that defies the law of gravity right there.’ They
would say, ‘you can’t do it.’ I’d say, ‘OK, since I can’t do it,’ then I’d reach down in my
pocket, grab all my money — I’d have about fourteen or fifteen hundred — and I said,
‘Here, I’ll bet this.’ And they’d give me the shots; they’d give me a hundred shots.
They’d say, ‘I’ll give you higher too, I don’t care.’ I said ‘Aw, a hundred will be alright.’
So you know what Taylor did, after the first shot that I shot it, I over cut the ball and it
went back past the side. He tried to get out of it. I said, ‘No way. Sorry, can’t do it.’
1P: What kind of english do you use on that?
VE: Oh, just a little out of center. Just a little bit outside.
1P: But around the center of the cue ball.
VE: Yeah, just a little around the center of the cue ball. Just a little outside the center, not
much. They would always say, ‘How’d you get that English on there and you never spin
the ball?’ They didn’t understand how I could bank and never spin the ball. Because I
didn’t spin the ball.
1P: Just a tiny bit?
VE: Yeah.
1P: So you must’ve just had just the right timing on that or something. To hit that that
thin and just enough spin to make it come backwards.
VE: Yeah. It doesn’t take that much; you don’t have to go as far out as you think you do.
See when you go way out there, that isn’t for the ball, that’s for the cue ball.
1P: Okay, I think that I have heard that they say when your banking a ball and you’re
trying to get English on the object ball, then you want to stay somewhere around the
middle of the cue ball…
VE: That’s exactly right. That’s the way I played all my life, right there. They used to tell
me I was a nut. They would say, ‘you can’t play because you don’t ever spin the ball.’
‘You don’t ever do this…’ I said, ‘well I’m sorry, I guess I’m an idiot.’
1P: [Laughs]
VE: They used to tell me I was an idiot, but so what? They would say, ‘well how do you
hold a ball like this? How do you throw a ball like this, your ball never spins?’ Because I
do it all from the center.
1P: And some of that is from cutting the ball. Like on that bank shot you’re talking about
in the proposition; you’re cutting it.
VE: Well, I’m throwing it. And then when you over cut them balls, you ought to see the
look on their face. I’m telling you it’s something else, because they knew I had them.
1P: That’s amazing.
VE: Man I loved that.
1P: So you got a kick out of stirring up a little… getting them riled up a little bit.
VE: I sure did.
1P: Because that’s what would make them reach a little bit deeper in their pocket.
VE: That’s right. I’d tell ‘em, ‘well, I can do this, I can do that.’ They would tell me,
‘You can’t do that.’ I’d say, ‘The hell with you,’ and I’d just reach in my pocket. I’d say,
‘well I’ll bet this; I don’t know what’s there but I’ll bet it.’ I know what I got, about
fifteen hundred, but I’d say, ‘I don’t even know what’s there but I’ll bet it. Now put your
money up, mouth, you won’t bet nothing.’ Then I’d start to pick the money up, and
they’d say: ‘No leave it there… Bet.’
1P: It sounds a little bit like that’s the way Cornbread worked too.
VE: Yeah, that Cornbread, he was a trip. They asked him up there in Detroit, they said,
‘You want to play that hillbilly some?’ He’d say, ‘No, us old Kentucky boys, we got to
stick together.’
1P: That’s funny.
VE: He couldn’t win.
1P: So you must have played him in the past?
VE: Yeah.
1P: But you avoided him in Detroit?
VE: Well no, I didn’t avoid him
1P: I mean he avoided you.
VE: Yeah, because the money got so high, I didn’t avoid nobody.
1P: If the money got high enough you wouldn’t avoid anybody.
VE: Absolutely. I like to play for high money. Some people don’t like it, but I love it.
1P: Cornbread was like that also, wasn’t he?
VE: Yeah. They got into it up there, ‘You play me or you can play that old Kentucky
boy there, or you can play that other old Kentucky boy,’ talkin’ about Clyde Childress,
when he was up there. And Clyde had a real high voice and he would squeal and he’d
say, ‘Yeah, you sons of bitches let’s play.’ He had a real high voice, but he wasn’t short
on nuts; he had some nuts. But hell, all of ‘em was from down in that part of Kentucky.
1P: Cornbread is from down there too isn’t he?
VE: Yeah, he sure is.
1P: So you and Cornbread were Kentucky brothers, or what did they call you?
VE: They called me a farmer. That’s what they called me up there in Detroit, the farmer.
Plowboy. Bernie Schwartz’s old lady used to tell him “You better leave that ol’ corn
picker alone.”
1P: [laughs]
VE: I really enjoyed them. I liked to play them, but I liked to beat them too.
1P: Did you play Bugs up there also?
VE: No, me and Bugs didn’t play up there; they wouldn’t stake him.
1P: In Chicago?
VE: No. I was in Detroit then, but they wouldn’t stake him there. See I was giving guys
ten to eight that Bugs couldn’t play nine to eight. You know I even gave that to Ronnie
Allen once and they said Bugs played Ronnie 9 to 8.
1P: You’re talking Banks, right?
VE: Yeah. I played Ronnie ten to eight and beat him. I don’t know why, but banking was
always so easy to me.
1P: Every now and then a couple young guys would come along that could really shoot
good banks, like that guy Rusty…
VE: Yeah I know, but he didn’t last. He asked me for eight to six, Rusty did. Rusty
Brandmeyer (sp?).
1P: Did you bump into Mark Tadd?
VE: I sure did; he wouldn’t take none of it.
1P: He went through a little hot streak there.
VE: Yeah, I know he did. He wanted to play on nothing but a bar table then. I said no, I
don’t like bar table action.
1P: So who were some of the toughest players that you ran up against?
VE: I’ll tell you what I played a guy in Corpus Christi one time his name was Canelo
(sp?)
1P: Mike…Not Mike Carella?
VE: No, no, I know Mike. Canelo was a Mexican, he couldn’t speak English. He could
play. I didn’t know but he beat everybody, he beat Buddy, he beat Larry Hubbard.
1P: At 9-Ball?
VE: Yeah. He beat Mike Sigel, you know he done beat them all.
1P: Wow.
VE: You know, I didn’t know it. So I’m down there playing him and I wind up beaten
him. I played there for like four days, and I’ll tell you what there wasn’t but four sets
difference in four days.
1P: Was that playing 9-Ball.
VE: Yeah, playing 9-Ball.
1P: What was his name again?
VE: Canelo.
1P: How do you spell that?
VE: I’m thinkin its c a n e l o.
1P: OK, Canelo. I’m trying to think of the guy from Ohio, Mike…No, Elias, Ted. Did
you bump into him?
VE: Who?
1P: Ted Elias. He probably mostly played 9-Ball.
VE: I’ll tell you I did. I played everybody in Ohio.
1P: Yeah.
VE: There was a hell of a good player from Ohio. Truck Driver.
1P: Truck Driver?
VE: Yeah.
1P: That was his nickname?
VE: Yeah, he could play. I mean he played good, good good. I never played him. But he
played good enough that he went through there one time. When Buddy Hall was playing
and winning two or three of those tournaments in a row. He went through there and he
gives Buddy the eight and he beat him.
1P: I never heard of him.
VE: Oh hell yeah.
1P: Was he a black guy?
VE: No, white guy. He liked to drink.
1P: Truck driver was his nickname?
VE: Yeah. Damn it to hell, I can’t think of his name but he could play.
1P: You did say that you bumped into Don Willis How about Bud Hypes?
VE: Bud, we never did play.
1P: I think he was an older generation anyway, but I think he’s still alive.
VE: I played all over from East Coast; I even played up there where you’re at.
1P: Oh yeah, up there around Boston?
VE: I played everyplace up there.
1P: Who did you play up in Boston?
VE: Shit, I don’t know it’s been eight or nine years ago, maybe ten. I just played people; I
didn’t know who they were, I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was gamble, but they won’t
gamble good up there.
1P: Yeah. It’s not a good gambling area.
VE: No kidding. They want to play good, but they don’t want to gamble good.
1P: What areas have you found that have been the best, where people gamble at. I mean I
know Detroit during the 80’s but how about other places?
VE: Anywhere in Detroit, anywhere in the South. Southwest a little bit. I would say
years back there was more gamblers probably around Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and
Georgia — around that area — than there was any place. I mean high gamblers too.
1P: And so when the Johnson City tournaments came you kind of stayed away from
those?
VE: Well I went there, but I got names is all I got — where they played at, what they
played. I wouldn’t play them in Johnson City. I would go to where they were at and shoot
them down there. I would talk to them and everything and get them to where they know
me. They knew me, but they didn’t know I could play. I would just get me a bunch of
names, that’s all I would do. That’s the reason Ronnie and them didn’t know I could play
until I played them. He said, ‘I’ve seen you for years round here, and I never did know
you could hit a ball.’ He said, ‘you’re a real sleeper.’
1P: You were a real stealth player then?
VE: Yeah. I liked it back then. I didn’t want to play in those damned ol’ tournaments and
stuff because I couldn’t gamble. If I couldn’t gamble I couldn’t raise my family.
1P: Did you play in some of those other East Coast cities like Philadelphia?
VE: Oh yeah, I played in all of them. I played all around New York.
1P: They’ve got pretty good straight pool players there but not so much banks?
VE: I didn’t want to played banks there. I wanted to play either 9-Ball or One Pocket. I
would play banks, but they wouldn’t play it. They didn’t ever dream of banking a ball.
1P: How about Strawberry you must’ve bumped into him.
VE: Yeah, I played Strawberry.
1P: Did you bump into a player with the nickname Country… a black player?
VE: Yeah.
1P: He apparently managed himself pretty well…
VE: Yeah he was around Jersey most of the time around Marlboro. I think that was the
name of the town where we played at. Did you ever see Country?
1P: No.
VE: If you ever see him, ask him about what I did to him in Indianapolis.
1P: I don’t know if he’s alive anymore, but what did you do?
VE: Oh, shit. I was up there playing in a black poolroom, and I busted him. They went
out and cut the tires off my car. It was all right. So I called my daughter up and told her to
fix me up a package, about eight of ‘em in it. And about a thirty second fuse. She brought
it to me I made ‘em call down the street and have a service truck come down and put four
brand new tires on my car. They had to, I had eight sticks of dynamite. You understand, I
was going to blow ‘em up. I would of blown every one of them up. I told ‘em too.
Country knows all about that. Country and all those guys up there around Jersey were
there, in Indianapolis. I done that to them. I sure did.
1P: They didn’t want you leaving with the money so it came down to that?
VE: They didn’t want me to leave period. But I went and made the guy that owned the
place call down the street there and get the truck to come down. And he paid for the tires,
same kind I had on there. I never had anything but Michelin put on, so that’s what I had
‘em put on.
1P: You were a pretty tough cookie there weren’t you?
VE: Well, I like to think.
1P: Yeah. I guess you had to be.
VE: I would run around probably 80% of the time by myself. I went in places that black
guys told me not to go in. I went to a spot up there in Gary, Indiana. And I don’t know if
you know this guy, Billy Williams? He’s from around Hammond, Indiana… Gary. But
he’s a super nice guy. And he used to own this pool room there in Gary, Indiana. And I
told him I was going to go over there and play some. And he said ‘please don’t go over
there. I’m black and I wouldn’t even go in there.’
1P: Billy Williams?
VE: Yeah, Billy Williams, super nice guy.
1P: And he’s about your age?
VE: I would say so.
1P: Did you ever play the guy they call Raymond Dog?
VE: Yeah, Dog, I played him too. I played Dog, I made him quit.
1P: He’s from Cleveland I think.
VE: Yeah, I made him quit.
1P: So you really didn’t book too many losers did you.
VE: No, I couldn’t afford too. [laughs] I had too many kids to take care of.
1P: You said five went to college…
VE: Yeah. Five went through college, and the rest of them are too damn smart to go.
1P: [laughs].
VE: That’s what I told them, you’re too damn smart to go, aren’t you.
1P: Any of them play pool?
VE: Yeah I got one kid that plays a little. But I won’t show him anything. I said if you
don’t finish school, I won’t never show you nothing. And I won’t either. I said if you
can’t do that one thing. Then I won’t show you. I know it’s awful to treat your kids like
that, but all he had to do was go to school. If he could do that, then I said I would show
him everything I know. Everything.
1P: Did you ever bump into Hayden Lingo in those days?
VE: Yeah, damn I remember that.
1P: You probably just played One Pocket.
VE: Me and Buddy was out…
1P: You spend quite a bit of time with Buddy then.
VE: Yeah, oh yeah. Well you know back when he was first getting started. The first time
we went to Johnson City. That’s where we separated at. See. I wouldn’t go for the
tournament. He said, ‘I want them to know who I am.’ I said, ‘I don’t give a damn who
you are. I don’t want them to know who I am.’ So there’s where we separated ways.
1P: So you mainly travelled with him before he entered the tournaments?
VE: Yeah.
1P: So he was only about 20 years old at that time?
VE: Yeah, twenty or twenty-one. He was on the run from the service. He was AWOL
there for a while.
1P: Oh yeah?
VE: Yeah. See they used to call him Rags, you know back when he was real young like
that. He was real skinny.
1P: Yeah…That has changed hasn’t it…He didn’t like One Pocket for years did he?
VE: No. We were on the road and I played that UJ Pucket, people like him you know.
And they couldn’t win. And then we got in tough games. You know, like with different
people. Well we got there and I played them. Because Buddy couldn’t play the game that
good ya’ know. And I had to learn.
1P: So how did you end up learning One Pocket?
VE: Well I watched it a lot. You know I saw people done it, good players, this and that.
And then like I say, I had no trouble. You know with moving things around. You know I
could see where things were going. Like when you hit ‘em. They had to go this way and
that way. This one had to hit that one. And just things like that. I could see it. You know,
people couldn’t see those things, a lot of them couldn’t.
1P: It seems like being a player who is under the radar so to speak. You did a lot more
watching then some players do.
VE: Oh yeah, from the start…right from the very start. But when I got in a spot where I
could gamble, I didn’t give a shit who watched.
1P: If there was real money involved then…
VE: Then we went ahead and done it.
1P: But that may have given you an edge when learning the game. Just the fact that
instead of jumping right in, you’re watching a little bit more?
VE: Well I had sense enough to know that I did not know how to play it, you know what
I mean. I knew I didn’t. And I knew some of the things I done, and some of the people I
beat, that I was an idiot. But I was an idiot that could make everything. But I was an idiot
to the game itself. So I had to learn the game. I couldn’t learn it by playing everyday, so I
watched. I watched good players, I watched bad players. You know you learn as much
from a real bad player as you do from a good one. You know that?
1P: Just from the way the balls behave.
VE: Yeah, just the things that they do, you know….Their little twisted minds. They have
no idea what there doing. Well I’ll do this, I’ll do that. And they think it’s a good move,
which would wind up being a good move. But they don’t know how they done it or
nothing else. So when I would see something like that, I would practice it.
1P: So you had some places where you could work on different moves without people
seeing you that much?
VE: Oh yeah.
1P: Was that around home or something.
VE: Yeah, around Parkmore.
1P: Oh Parkmore, the bowling place.
VE: Yeah, I’ll tell you what there was a guy there. John Winters he’s a great guy. He
used to be Truman’s stake horse. John Winters, you can ask him. I let him do me like
that….you know, stake me. He staked me for 10 years. Ask him how many winners, I
mean how many losers he booked. Ask him.
1P: Well that’s very interesting.
VE: Hell we went everyplace and played everybody. Played everything.
1P: Now these days with the internet and everything, cell phones. It seems like it would
be awfully hard to get around and not get known.
VE: No, you can still do it. I’ll tell you something. If I could walk right now, I could still
play.
1P: Its partly just because if you don’t play in the tournaments that people just assume
that your not good enough.
VE: That’s right. I never played in them. There never was enough money for me. I
wanted to play for a lot more than that.
1P: Yeah. Well Vernon, I appreciate talking to you and look forward to talking to you
some more. Very interesting.
VE: Well partner I enjoy it myself.
1P: [laughs] well good.
VE: That’s something I hardly ever do…talk pool.
1P: Oh yeah?
VE: Yeah.
1P: Ok. I’ll talk to you again and I really enjoy hearing about these older players.
VE: If you get a chance…You talk to Freddy?
1P: Yeah.
VE: Tell him to bring Bugs up with him if you can.
1P: In January.
VE: Yeah I want to see him.
1P: I think we can probably get Bugs there. We got him there the last two years and I
think we will get him there. I just talked to him today about that actually.
VE: Alright, that’s good I’m glad.
1P: So I think he will probably be there again.
VE: Bugs knows when I was up there in Detroit. He knows I played everybody,
everybody. I didn’t duck anybody.
1P: Yeah it sounds like that’s where some of that college education came from.
VE: Yup. Sure was.
1P: Was that around the right time for the kids in college?
VE: Well they were getting ready to get in there. Some of the older ones were.
VE: Well we were betting pretty high. You know I was betting anywhere from thirty to
fourty thousand a game. On up to a little over a quarter million to set.
1P: Wow.
VE: I was betting it up pretty good. I loved it. Better than screwing.
1P: [laughs] You must have been pretty good at that if you got 8 kids.
VE: Oh, yeah. But my old lady. She said, ‘I bet you like that more than you do me.’ I
said, ‘your right.’
1P: So you were married to the same lady for a long time?
VE: Yeah.
1P: Is she still alive?
VE: Yeah.You know what though. She never knew I done nothing but shoot pool. Never
knew anything about me. I wouldn’t tell her. I was very, very closed mouth with her. I
don’t tell them women anything. I won’t do it. They want to know something I’d tell
them to call information.
1P: So you didn’t tell her the details of what you were involved with?
VE: No never, I just carried the money in. Carried it in there, and then my other old lady,
I had the older kids.
1P: All right Vernon, good talking with you. I could use a couple of pictures of you if
you’re willing?
VE: Doug took a couple of them.
IP: Ok great.
VE: From what era?
1P: All eras are great.
VE: Okay.
1P: You probably don’t have that many when you were hustling anyway, but you had the
family, around your family or whatever probably.
VE: Yeah, I’ll find a bunch more of them and give them to Doug.
1P: Ok then.
VE: All right partner well you take it easy.
1P: All right very good talking with you Vernon.
VE: My pleasure partner.
1P: Bye now.
VE: Bye.
photos courtesy of Diana Hoppe