Light Side: Beware pool sharks

The Press recently featured a story on the history of the building at 2501 N. 4th St., which enjoyed a long run in the '70s and '80s as community bar Chelsea's.

The article brought up fond memories for Jackie McAvoy, who used to play on Chelsea's pool team when she was in her late 30s.

"We were pretty good. We did win a lot of games," McAvoy said, recalling the weekly competitions at different bars. "It was fun, just a relaxing time."

It wasn't the victories  that made it worthwhile, she said, so much as the constant joking between the members of the all-women's team, most of whom she worked with and played softball with, too.

"We were all good friends," she said. "It was some outside-of-work camaraderie."

But not everyone was a fan.

She remembered one evening she went to the Slab Inn in Post Falls with some friends and a man asked her to dance.

"He said, 'I know you from somewhere.' And I said, 'Hm, I don't know,'" McAvoy said. "Then he said, 'Do you shoot pool? I shot pool with you and you beat me, and I don't dance with people who beat me.' He walked off the dance floor and I went back to my friends."

- Alecia Warren