As you walked in, there was the long bar to the left, four domino tables to the right, three pool tables next to the domino tables, and a bed sheet covered card table next on the left, right after the bar curved to meet the wall. Hot domino games were played every lunch hour during the week, some a with a standing group of regulars that included my Dad, Bob Voitier, and his best buddy and playing partner, Bonneal Whip. The atmosphere of games was blithe yet “serious” as nobody wanted to lose. The friendly competition engendered raucous, nearly non-stop banter among players hooting, hollering, and belly-laughing at each other and sometimes just in general.
Each table had a black slate pad, about the size of a scratch tablet, on one corner that the designated scorekeeper would mark with chalk as the game progressed as each players slammed down dominoes with a pronated hand. The scorekeeper would enthusiastically make one or more slash marks on the slate pad depending on how many points accrued to a successful player. A scoring play might prompt a single slash mark on the pad, and a better play would result in two or more, the second mark making an “X” over the first, and so on down the line — X X /, etc. I never learned to play dominoes, so I can’t say what the slash marks stood for.
Bonneal and my Dad were a formidable team. The former was the garrulous owner-operator of a thriving shoe repair shop, and my Dad was the general manager of wildly successful Schlitz beer distributorships in Opelousas, Baton Rouge, and Monroe. Each was their own boss. Dad and Bonneal were big friends and two of the noisiest players. They rarely missed a day during the week.
Warren Moore was the owner-operator of Ned’s and had a strict rule of “No Women Allowed”. Someone told me that the reason for the rule was to assuage the jealous anxieties of the wives of the customers, most of who were married. However, on one landmark day the rule was lifted ever so briefly and for one person only. She was a short-haired blonde, the tomboy type, taller than average with shoulders broader than average but not so broad as to send off a masculine vibe, but close.
The day she sought admittance, she was dressed in a pair of lived-in jeans secured by a leather belt, a well-worn blue jean jacket, and leather work boots that appeared to be about 3/4 of the way through their useful life. Her clean denim work shirt was tucked in. Turns out, she worked for a pipeline company that would be in the Opelousas area for a few weeks as it worked its way north to provide southern natural gas to the descendants of the winners of the Civil War. She could have been employed as the operator of a backhoe or a bulldozer or a big trenching machine; or she could have been employed as a welder or perhaps as the operator of the x-ray machine used to make sure each weld was done right. She may even have been a laborer. On balance she was ruggedly attractive and had an easy but self-assured air. I guess Warren Moore decided that if she worked like a man, she could come in like a man.
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Terry Darby
Damn had to get my old man out of there tooo many times.
Robert Voitier, Jr.
Ned’s Bar
As you walked in, there was the long bar to the left, four domino tables to the right, three pool tables next to the domino tables, and a bed sheet covered card table next on the left, right after the bar curved to meet the wall. Hot domino games were played every lunch hour during the week, some a with a standing group of regulars that included my Dad, Bob Voitier, and his best buddy and playing partner, Bonneal Whip. The atmosphere of games was blithe yet “serious” as nobody wanted to lose. The friendly competition engendered raucous, nearly non-stop banter among players hooting, hollering, and belly-laughing at each other and sometimes just in general.
Each table had a black slate pad, about the size of a scratch tablet, on one corner that the designated scorekeeper would mark with chalk as the game progressed as each players slammed down dominoes with a pronated hand. The scorekeeper would enthusiastically make one or more slash marks on the slate pad depending on how many points accrued to a successful player. A scoring play might prompt a single slash mark on the pad, and a better play would result in two or more, the second mark making an “X” over the first, and so on down the line — X X /, etc. I never learned to play dominoes, so I can’t say what the slash marks stood for.
Bonneal and my Dad were a formidable team. The former was the garrulous owner-operator of a thriving shoe repair shop, and my Dad was the general manager of wildly successful Schlitz beer distributorships in Opelousas, Baton Rouge, and Monroe. Each was their own boss. Dad and Bonneal were big friends and two of the noisiest players. They rarely missed a day during the week.
Warren Moore was the owner-operator of Ned’s and had a strict rule of “No Women Allowed”. Someone told me that the reason for the rule was to assuage the jealous anxieties of the wives of the customers, most of who were married. However, on one landmark day the rule was lifted ever so briefly and for one person only. She was a short-haired blonde, the tomboy type, taller than average with shoulders broader than average but not so broad as to send off a masculine vibe, but close.
The day she sought admittance, she was dressed in a pair of lived-in jeans secured by a leather belt, a well-worn blue jean jacket, and leather work boots that appeared to be about 3/4 of the way through their useful life. Her clean denim work shirt was tucked in. Turns out, she worked for a pipeline company that would be in the Opelousas area for a few weeks as it worked its way north to provide southern natural gas to the descendants of the winners of the Civil War. She could have been employed as the operator of a backhoe or a bulldozer or a big trenching machine; or she could have been employed as a welder or perhaps as the operator of the x-ray machine used to make sure each weld was done right. She may even have been a laborer. On balance she was ruggedly attractive and had an easy but self-assured air. I guess Warren Moore decided that if she worked like a man, she could come in like a man.
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