Seniors Rack Up Win in Feud at Center

The old guys were steaming.

All they wanted to do was to attach two very tiny hooks to the undersides of the Rose City Senior Center’s two pool tables. They wanted to hang the rack--the triangle used to line up the balls--beneath the tables.

With arthritis, chronic back pains, a few coronary bypasses and several strokes among them, the men--ranging in age from 62 to 84--were tired of bending to the floor or underneath chairs to find the rack.

Center director Janice Stewart told them that she didn’t think the hooks were necessary. She did not expect the onslaught of foul language that followed--or the silver-haired warfare that ensued.

“It’s usually a very happy place,” said Stewart, a bit embarrassed.

But it wasn’t a happy place in January. A woman was threatened. Police were called to the scene. The city manager convened a special meeting.

Eventually, a truce was declared. And residents of this otherwise sleepy old mill town marveled at the moxie of a group of senior citizens.

“I’ve never seen so much made out of so little,” 69-year-old Norman Peltier, a retired Air Force pilot, recalled over a pool game recently. “They thought they could push us around. We showed ‘em.”

As you might expect, the senior center is normally a fairly quiet place, with as many as 200 people a day coming for bingo, pinochle and bridge games, ceramics, quilting classes, yoga and low-impact exercise.

Fifteen to 20 men play pool. Bearing little carrying cases for their pool cues, they come when the center opens at 8:30 a.m.; they don’t leave until the center closes at 4:30 p.m.

Their days are filled with hearty competition among friends, tall tales of age-old exploits that more often than not involved curvy women, and the center’s $1.50 meals of meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

One man recently entertained his friends by putting a scantily clad, windup hula doll on one of the pool tables.

“When I’m here, I enjoy myself and see all my friends. I don’t sit at home and brood over my health,” said Joe Vasington, 65, a retired repairman.

After the rack imbroglio, the center’s staff decided to close the pool room for a week in late January until a meeting could be held to discuss proper decorum, as well as the players’ concerns about how they were being treated.

Of particular worry to the center’s staff, Stewart said, was the cussing and yelling and other “disruptive behavior” that had turned the pool room into something akin to a den of iniquity.

“The other members who were there and some of the wives that were coming in were offended by the poor language,” she said.

But when Stewart’s assistant posted the notice that the room would be closed, the woman was threatened by the angry seniors, she said.

“There was abusive language and they refused to leave the building. We had to call the police,” Stewart said.

By the time officers arrived, the players had scattered. No octogenarians were led away in handcuffs.

Their sanctuary off limits, the seniors formed carpools and drove 10 miles to another senior center’s pool room.

“Otherwise, we would walk the malls or go down to the landing to watch the ducks,” said Peltier, a lanky man who throws his entire body into the opening break of a pool game.

City Manager William Tallman and the president of the City Council, Harry Jackson, are still astonished at how the argument escalated.

“The city manager has plenty other things to do than settle this,” said Jackson, chuckling. “We’ve got budget hearings and everything else going on.”

The men admit some inappropriate remarks were made, but say they shouldn’t have been kicked out of the pool room like schoolchildren made to stand in a corner.

At a meeting called by Tallman, the players agreed to put their demands in writing. They wanted their hooks. They wanted coffee allowed in the room. They wanted a small, hand-held vacuum cleaner to remove lint from the pool tables. They wanted respect.

“This means a lot to us,” Peltier said. “It’s like we’re still schoolkids. That’s all we are. You might think we were senile by the way they treat us.”

In mid-February, their demands were met. In a letter to the group, Stewart wrote that they could have hooks, coffee and a vacuum cleaner, but warned that they should behave themselves or face disciplinary action.

For their part, the seniors have agreed to try to curb their language and keep the games friendly.

“This is our home,” said Ben Vasington, 62. “I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have this place to come to.”