Saturday At The Shady Lady

After lunch on Saturday, Mike and I went by the Shady Lady to watch some of the pool tournament they were having. We walked in and immediately noticed Earl Strickland was there, he is a professional player. Mike has taped some of the billiards tournaments on our DVR and he is in quite a few of them. Mike said this must be a pretty big tournament. Turns out it is somewhat of a tribute to Tony Elin(sp?) he was a local guy who made a name for himself in the billiards world. He was killed in an accident 6 years ago, when his car was struck by a train. His wife Shelby has been to our house before to get cues repaired. She has since remarried to a nice guy who runs one of the leagues here. Anyhow, there were a lot of big name players at the bar.
It was cool to see them play average folks! They are very approachable and seemed to be very nice. Nick Varner was there. He was nice and looks somewhat like a little clown without makeup. That sounds bad, but I don't mean it in a bad way, I swear!

The most delightful thing of all was that Johnny Archer was in attendance. You have to understand, before Mike and I got together, I knew nothing of professional billiards. I mean, I had seen The Hustler and The Color Of Money and I knew who Minnesota Fats was....that was it. Mike is an excellent player and quite a student of the game. His work in cue repair is second to none. So he has been around a lot of this stuff and understand the history of the game and the characters therein. He records a lot of the tournaments that are televised now that we have Directv DVR (WE LOVE THIS). As we are watching, I ask a lot of question. (Shocked arent you?) I like to know the players nicknames. I love the shady characters and the colorful characters that make up the game. They have these monikers that sometimes suit them and sometimes it's a play on their names. So anyhow, this guy Johnny Archer is known as The Scorpion. That just sounds so much like some James Bond nemesis that it made me laugh. When I saw the guy on TV, I cracked up. He doesn't look nearly as intimidating as you would imagine. It is sort of ridiculous to me that this guy from Georgia has this scarey sounding name! I started saying his name with a lot of drama and in a whispery accent. Totally making fun of it and saying things like "The Scorpion has his next victim in his sights" "a mere mortal might miss this shot, but not the Scorpion, for him it is child's play", etc. It helps to imagine a British accent! ROFLMAO I know you had to be there, but trust me it was funny.
You can imagine how hard I was giggling when I realized we were in the same room as THE SCORPION! :) For the record, he is an incredible pool player and seems to be a very nice guy. I just couldn't stop laughing at the whole thing.
What is really cool is that we got to watch these hall of fame and future hall of fame caliber players here in town a mile from our house. We had been talking about trying to get to Vegas for a tournament, etc. So here they were and we just stumbled upon the whole thing! Way cool!
Since it was hotter than Hades yesterday, we sat inside this bar and drank ice cold beer. It was a lot of fun. So much drama and FUNNY people watching. We had a blast. And it was neat that some local folks will have a chance to say they played in a tournament with these famous players. Some of them even played them or should I say got beaten by them! LOL
Mike and I had a great time, I love going places with him. We saw several folks we knew and a good time was had by all!
In closing....BEWARE OF THE SCORPION.....he could turn up where you least expect it!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :)