Letter to the Editor: Poker in Old Pattonsburg

Remember playing poker back in the 1940s and ’50s? Poker was a popular game in this area. I always thought it was against the law, but nothing was ever done about it. The games were held at several places. They even had a placed called the Poker Shack two miles west of Pattonsburg on the river bank.

My dad owned the hardware store in town and there were always a bunch of men sitting around full of gossip. When there was a game coming up, I got my ears full wondering about it. It wasn’t just Pattonsburg men. Players came from other towns as well. I knew most of them by first names but won’t mention any. On these nights there was always a mountain oyster fry. (I never could understand how anyone could eat them but later found them to be good.)

The story I’m going to tell about happened in Old Pattonsburg. I lived two blocks south of where the Christian Church on Highway Z is now located.

Across the street from my home was an old black shed with wood shingles that had one walk-in side door. A man by the name of Tap lived there. He always kept a padlock on the door when he was gone.

Late one evening my friend Clyde Bozarth and I were messing around in my yard when we noticed a few cars pulling up to the shed in the alley. Soon the street was full in front. There was a dim street light across the street and we could see the door easy.

Clyde and I circled out around in the weeds and dropped a screwdriver in the latch. We came back around and lay down in a potato patch across the street to watch. Nothing happened for a long time. So we pulled some potatoes and started throwing them at the roof. Soon there was a lot of noisy yelling, cussing and pounding. All of a sudden the door came straight down with two guys lying face down on it. Everybody else came stampeding out, yelling, cussing and scattering in every direction.

Clyde and I still laugh about it. We thought that they thought they were caught and locked up together. We always wondered who got the money, the cards, and who had what hands.

This was hard to write when you laugh doing it. Nothing was ever said about it.

Lyle Warford, Pattonsburg