Night on the town

I love to play pool. I practice all the time mostly over the river in Little Rock at a place called Gusano's They are on the row of the River Market on the section of Markham renamed for that Prez we had called Clinton, Homeboy and all that. I went there Friday night to play pool with a friend and ended up making a handful of new friends most of whom I played pool with, my original pool partner never did show up. Talk about standing room only, man trying to play pool in a crowd is its own kind of game, you just can't make shots unless you know how to do trick shots, or break your pool stick in half. I have my own pool stick, it unscrews in the middle and I practice playing with a short stick. Which in itself has a story around it, as to why I do practice with a short stick. I bought the stick about 18 years ago, and never really used it much until recently.

One day a few months ago, while at Gusano's someone from Little Rock's Homeless community who knows me by sight but was not really a friend of mine challenged me to a game but said I'd have to use a house pool stick. I really wanted to play with mine so I told him I'd play with the shorter front half and play him at a disadvantage. I could see by how he had played his female friend that he was pretty good, most likely better than me. But he was bragging That yeah he knew he was better than me because he saw me missing to many shots in my game. I was not taking the easy shots, I was making my game last, taking hard shots, teaching myself what I could or could not do. So in his observing me he had miscalculated my abilities by what he thought he saw. I tend to be as good natured as I possibly can be, so I played with my short stick for what he wanted to play for; Bragging Rights.

With just a few balls left on the table he realized that I was very close to beating him with a short stick, it is after all not the length of the stick but how you use it that matters, even in pool the soft touches work wonders. For his sake I let him sink the 8 ball as it was the last ball left on the table after I could have won. I though taught myself a lesson, Practice with the short stick and learn more control, so when you have the power of the weight of the long stick, you can harness it, or choke it down and still get the job done. Last night with the crowd the way it was I showed my new friend Scott that using a short stick makes it great for crowded places or the trick shots. He was a much better player than myself, he showed me new things I want to try when I am out practicing again next time.

Gusano's is Chicago Style pizza and Arkansas Owned, they have 4 stores around the state and if you ever get into town go there and check out the place, the wait staff and managers are friendly and very good at their jobs.

While I am talking about great places to eat in and around my haunts of central Arkansas there is a little place I went to today called The Circle. They are located in downtown North Little Rock on Main street, the 300 block, The whole place is barely 20 feet wide, they seat about 24. We had 20 in our group from Trinity Lutheran Church which left one table of 4 chairs, they did have tables set outside, but only 4 more seats out there. They have lots of things to offer, wraps or sandwiches, salads, daily soups, even chili dogs. Water to wine, coffee and sodas, beer and shakes. A nicely tightly run shop, we were seated, orders taken and food was out in less than 15 minutes and our whole crowd was out of there in an hour. They knew we were coming so there is that, but even then we filled their cafe to its limits and it takes a good team to get that many people served and it all done in a timely manner. So Check them out all you Local readers, and anyone who is out there not from these parts on your next visit look them up for a nice place to have a good meal. Their Tomato and Roasted Garlic soup is very good and so is the Lox.

Have a Blessed day,
Charles.