Photo of the Day: 6 Ball
I suppose this shot would be a bit more iconic if it were an 8 ball, but you know? I like the color of the six ball, and that's the shot that presented itself to me, so I'll take it.
Pool brings out intense memories for me, regarding my father. When I was little, he scraped and scraped money together so that he could buy a bumper pool table. This is an odd, smaller pool table with bumpers placed around it. I've never seen one since, but as a kid, we had a lot of fun playing bumper pool. Dad worked hard to get it, but what he really wanted was a full pool table. After we moved to Lawrence, and we had the space and the money, he finally got one by going in with a neighbor. it was one of his prized possessions along with his fishing boat. The last words I heard my father speak before he died were, just whispered, to my step father: "Keep the boat covered and it'll be okay." He gave his boat to my stepfather.
I think that really upset me at the time, that there he was, struggling to take breaths, and all he could think about was to make sure that his boat would be okay. And maybe it does mean that he was a materialistic son of a bitch. But he worked hard all his life for those things, and I don't think he worried about us. He knew we still had Karen, mom, and Mike. If he trusted Mike to have his boat, then I am pretty sure, in his way, he trusted Mike to be there for us too.