Smell the Coffee from the Nov. 13 Sunday Gazette-Mail

As we neared the propped-open doorway on South High Street in Morgantown, I could tell Geoff was taking me someplace special. His excitement was palpable as we started down the marble stairs, and he appeared pleased when I noticed how the stair’s edges were worn wavy and grooved from thousands upon thousands of shoes.

“How old is this place?” I asked.

“1920s,” he said. “At least.”

When I got my first good look at the cavernous old pool hall where he’d taken me, I was speechless (a condition I’m rarely rendered for long). I understood why he’d been excited about bringing me there. It was my kind of place.

Funny how a pool hall could be my kind of place considering that I’d never played pool, but it was. Geoff knew I’d like the feel of the place, that I’d like how it wasn’t make-believe old or deliberately kitschy, with the walls decorated with things that were never meant to be hung on walls. It was an honest-to-goodness pool hall. The Met.

Although a few years had passed since Geoff’s last trip to the Met, he said nothing had changed. I have a sneaking suspicion little has in the last 80 plus years. It once was men only, so you’d think after women were granted admittance, a second restroom might be required. Management sidestepped that problem by simply posting a sign, “The Men’s room is through the big open door at the back of the room. The Women’s room is the Men’s room with the big door pulled shut.”

Another posted instruction advised, “Don’t place drinks on tables. The tables are older than your grandmother. You wouldn’t put a drink on your grandmother’s head, would you?”

Geoff got a tray of balls from Bill Bonfili, a long-time behind-the-counter Met fixture, telling him we’d play for an hour or two. It was early in the afternoon, so we were nearly alone. A lone man had claimed the front, center table, and from the rap-crack sound his cue ball made as he popped it against the others, I guessed he was a regular there.

We chose a table in the back of the room, selected our sticks, then started to play. For a while, Geoff was totally rusty and I was totally green, then it started to click. I couldn’t gage how hard I should hit, but my aim and angles were good. I sunk more than a few. Sometimes, I even sunk the balls in the holes I meant them to go in.

I had my camera along, so I snapped a few pictures. Mismatched chairs and bar stools, low hanging lights, exposed pipes and ductwork. Budweiser signs. A row of old theater seats below a framed advertisement of a pretty girl in a sailor’s hat promising “Things go better with Coke.”

Geoff had been right. It was my kind of place.

Best of all, though, was that he knew that it was. That he knows me that well.

Since our first anniversary was on Halloween, we postponed celebrating until we had a day to ourselves. When that day came, we spent it walking around downtown Morgantown, eating hotdogs at Gene’s, playing pool at the Met.

I’m not a romantic sort of person. I don’t lust after jewelry or expensive perfume, don’t much care for cut flowers or store-bought cards. So only someone who knows me extraordinarily well could’ve planned a day as perfect as I found our day to be.

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