Tuesday’s rains found about a dozen billiards players at the Spring Valley campus of the Perry Lutheran Homes, recreating around the table in their customary way and sometimes trying to remember whether they were solids or stripes.
The group rotates between the Spring Valley venue and the Perry Billiard Room at 1220 Willis Ave. in suite 13 of the Traverse arcade building in downtown Perry.
This week’s Spring Valley pool shooters were Jim Caufield, Ken Finer, Larry Laborde, Irwin Levorson, Don McLuen, Larry Ohrtman, Doug Royer, Joe Royer, Bob “Stub” Smithson and Jim Walstrom. Other regulars include Charlie Eby, Lou Hoger and Paul Linnenkamp.
Finer rounded up the Spring Valley cohort in 2024, while Royer’s Perry Billiard Room opened in 2021. Royer, a 1976 graduate of Perry High School, saw the last fading gleams of Perry’s pool-hall traditions at Farnham Billiards at 1104 Willis Ave. and Hylbak Billiard Parlor at 1018 Railroad St.
In 1955 Harold Farnham bought out Cornelius Billiards, which opened in 1922. Farnham offered billiards, eight ball and snooker, with pinball and foosball coming later, until he retired in 1975, with cue sports giving way to an insurance and real estate brokerage in 1980.
Russ Hylbak turned from painting signs to running a pool hall on the Triangle, opening his business Aug. 28, 1943, and retiring in 1972. The portion of Railroad Street where his billiard parlor stood was destroyed by fire July 23, 1989.
New players are always welcome at the 1 p.m. sessions.
