My brother Don, older by nearly five years, is better than I am at almost everything. Of course, if you’d ask him if that were true, he’d modestly say it would be––if the word “almost” were deleted. Over the years, he’s won about ninety-seven percent of our pool matches. I noticed something for the first time when we played pool during his recent visit. “Have you always shot pool left-handed?” I asked.

He pointed his cue stick toward a corner pocket and sank another shot. “Yep,” he said. “And there’s an interesting story behind it.”

I’d like to share with you the story he told me because it explains why a right-handed man shoots pool left-handed:

One day in March of 1951, thirteen-year-old junior high student Don McNair rode the fan bus to Princeton, Indiana, with a bunch of other students to root for the Fort Branch High School Twigs at the sectional. I’m not joking here, folks. We really were the Fort Branch Twigs. (For you slower thinkers, there’s a connection between “Branch” and “Twigs.”)

Mom naively assumed he’d spend the entire time in the Princeton gymnasium watching basketball games and singing, “We’re cheering for you Fort Branch High – Rah! Rah!” with the rest of the fans, but you and I know that didn’t happen, don’t we? At some point, he and his buddies ended up at the Palace Pool Hall in beautiful downtown Princeton. Don had never been inside a pool hall before, and the thought that Mom might somehow find out gave him an uneasy feeling.

Most of the strangers that crowded the place were in their teens or twenties, but a few were older. Six or seven men in their forties, fifties, and sixties – probably pool experts – sat on high stools and watched the games, occasionally making comments. One, a stogie-smoking man with closely cropped white hair and a missing front tooth, was the most vocal.

“Hey, kid,” he said, pointing his cigar at Don, “put your dime on the table and play the winner. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Don placed a dime on the table. He’d never shot pool before, but how hard could it be? You hit the white ball with a stick, and it knocks a colored ball into whatever pocket you’re aiming for. They were playing Eight Ball. Even he knew the rules to that game.

“You’re next, kid.”

Don glanced at his opponent, a tall, skinny kid, perhaps sixteen years old, with a Chesterfield dangling from his mouth. My brother was about to play his first pool game ever, and against a big-city Princeton kid who knew how to smoke, no less. Don took careful aim and hit the white ball hard with the cue stick, but it didn’t knock the colored ball into the pocket he was aiming for. In fact, it didn’t hit the colored ball at all. It leaped right over it, bounced off the table, and rolled down the floor.

He heard the stogie smoker’s raspy voice over the laughter. “Hey, kid. Maybe you’re left-handed.”

Don figured the pool expert on the high stool knew what he was talking about, so he finished playing the first pool game of his life left-handed, as the man suggested, and has played left-handed ever since. He forgot about the pool guru’s comment until he was in his mid thirties. That’s when he finally realized that instead of giving him pool-playing advice, the stogie smoker was making him the butt of a joke.

“That’s funny,” I said when he finished his story. “I bet you never told Mom you played pool that day, did you?”

“Nope. Never did.”

I thought for a moment. “You know, I can understand your not telling Mom, but how come you never told me before now?”

“Because you were the world’s biggest tattletale. If I told you, not only would Mom know about it, the entire world would know.”

Don’s tattletale accusation hurt my feelings. What did he think I’d do – write a story about it that ended by emphasizing his inability to understand the difference between a snide comment and sage advice and post it somewhere where every man, woman, and child in the world could read it?

Why, I’d never poke fun at Lefty.

(Be sure to check out Mike’s website at www.mikemcnair.yolasite.com.)