"Titanic Tales" part 1

By San Jose Dick Mc Morran
In the 60s, wherever the action pool room in Dallas was at that time, either the Cotton Bowling Palace or Times Square, Alvin C. Thomas, AKA "Titanic" Thompson would hold court almost daily. Ti, already in his 70s, could still wield a mean golf club and a meaner deck of cards. His many other games of chance and trickery were legendary and all the young "scuffs" (yours truly included) would hang on Ti's every word when we could get him to open up about some of his past exploits.

I had the privilege of caddying (well, driving the cart anyway) for him, a few times, in his frequent high stakes golf match-ups. A high rolling gambler once staked a highly regarded lady pro to give Ti three strokes a side, in a $2000 nassau. I was out of town when the actual event took place. We did speak by phone the night before, and he assured me that there was, quote; "No "mop-squeezer" in the world that could give him three-a-side!" unquote.
He had to have been over 70 at the time, but sure enough, he won both sides and the back side press, for a cool $8000. He had her in tears. There was no re-match.

Male chauvinism was alive and well in those days. Ti was lucky there were very few, highly skilled, lady pool player's back then, or he may have let his male ego get him in trouble. That goes for me too.

The game of pool was one of the few things that Ti never quite mastered. His usual con and gamesmanship seemed to leave him when he matched up at his favorite game, One pocket. He took some brutal, large dollar beatings at the hands of "New York Fats" and Hubert Cokes (to name a few), when One pocket was young, in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Eventually, Cokes and he became quite good pals, and they often hit the road together. Talk about "double trouble."

Ti was a solid "B" player, and not completely helpless at pool, but as he began to realize his limitations, he zeroed in on a seldom played game and succeeded in pushing it well beyond his skill level at ordinary pool. He became one of the best three rail kickers I have ever seen. Playing either off the spot, or making the middle ball in a 15 ball rack, Ti could beat players far more advanced than him at the other pool games. He also knew exactly how many shots he could safely bet on. Using his natural gift of gab, he caught many players and side bettors alike in his little "three rail kick-in" trap. In fact, he became so proficient at the game, that he could beat a lot of shortstops at it by throwing the ball with his bare hand, instead of using a cue stick.

Ti, as everyone called him, loved the game of One pocket. He would often bet on me (or stake me) even when I had the worst of it. Sometimes, just the intimidation factor, of such a legendary gambler would be just enough to throw my opponent off, and turn a bad game into a winner. Ti appreciated my knowledge of the game and would often grab a set of balls and challenge me to a horrible match-up, for him, just to get some cheap lessons. We would bet it up a little at times, but we would keep adjusting the game so no one got hurt bad. I'd often be gone for extended periods, and when I'd return, I can still see his "cat eating" grin, when he'd greet me with, "Dick, you won't believe how much better I'm playing One pocket now. Get the balls, I'll play you some 8 to 6, and kick your young Irish ass."

We became quite good friends in those years. I looked up to him and always felt very fortunate to have him for a mentor. Sure do wish I would have absorbed more. His son Tommy, from a long forgotten marriage, re-surfaced around that time and we became close too. Tommy was a real chip off the old block. He lacked his father's gift of gab, (just try and follow that act) but he had learned his way around a deck of cards as good, if not better, than Ti himself. Ti sent Tommy up to Evansville, for further training in the "Daddy Warbuck's" school of gambling, and, just like he had done with Ti decades earlier, Mr. Cokes and Tommy took off some high $$$ scores.

Partner's One pocket was quite popular in those days and presented a virtual kaleidoscope of potential ways to match up a game. A and C players against two B players, A and D players against B and C players, etc., and coaching, either allowed or not allowed, made for some really spirited pre-game negotiations. Most regular players knew how to match up head-to-head, but partner's opened up a whole new ball game. Many times neither team would know for sure who had the best of it until it was too late. For the most part, it was pure gambling. The high rolling gambler's and oil men loved partnering up with the top players. They'd bet it up, big time.

Enter into this equation a man by the name of Red Box. Red owned one of the greatest action pool rooms ever, the Guys and Dolls in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was a good, smart gambler, and he and Ti were always trying to "one up" each other. Red was a little bit like Ti, in that he would have sacrificed a major body organ to play top notch One pocket. Ti, as shrewd a gambler as he was, thought he played about even with Red, but I could clearly see that Red had the best of it by at least ball, if not two.

Every month or so, a typical conversation between Ti and me would go something like this; "Hey Dick, Red called today and he said that Peter Rabbit, or Buddy Hall or Earl Heisler was in town, and they will give us 8-7 playing partners. I think we got the nuts at that, don't you?" He would elaborate on his reasoning by saying, "You play as well or better than Red's partner (whoever that might be) and Red and I are pretty even, aren't we?

Ti and I had played partners with some of the local Dallas players with varying results. The big differential was usually whether I was allowed to coach him during the games. We had worked out an elaborate set of signals for the games where coaching was not allowed, but there really wasn't an effective way to tell him where I wanted his cue ball to end up. The signals were pretty much limited to the specific ball I wanted him to shoot, and he was mostly on his own after that. However, at some point Red snapped to that and I had to look away from Ti when he was at the table (in the "no coaching match-ups). In addition, I could never convince him that he was at least a ball shy of Red's One pocket game. There was never a problem with the money. Ti always had plenty of cash and if I didn't, he was willing to bankroll any partner's play we made. I don't have to tell you how persuasive he could be when he felt like playing.

Usually, our matches were made before we left for the 200 mile drive to Shreveport. Ti was often a little lax in his demand for me to be allowed to coach him, because I think, in his mind he thought he knew all there was to know about the game. Many times we would get off loser at the partner's game, and I would have to match up a tough heads- up game to try and recover our losses. Red Box was a good, smart gambler, but he loved action and fortunately, although a lot of money changed hands between us, no one got hurt too bad in those good old days. Ti, and Red sure loved their one-hole.

Ti eventually realized that he was no "Eddie Taylor" at pool. He, Tommy and I, roamed around together for a while back in the late 60s. We were a pretty well rounded crew with Ti's con games, Tommy's card playing skills, and my occasional pool score.

There were times we hit some pretty rough joints in the Ark-La-Tex area we moved around in. But I never felt any apprehension because every night, Ti and Tommy would clean and check their "artillery". Ti carried an old .44 revolver with about a ten inch barrel, which looked much like a typical old John Wayne six-shooter, and I knew he wasn't afraid to use it if he felt it was necessary. Ti, almost always, wore a suit to conceal the old "hog leg". Tommy's .357 was always strapped to his ankle under his bell bottoms, so we weren't short on firepower should the need arise.
Fortunately, it never did. The few awkward spots we encountered, would usually wind up with the offending "tush-hog", backing down from the "skinny old man" with the piercing eyes.

I'm not trying to infer that Ti and I were full time partners, but for several years, we hooked up often enough for me to have had some very memorable life experiences. I hope you've enjoyed my sharing a few with you. I have always considered it a privilege to have met and befriended, one of the true legends of our time, Alvin C. "Titanic Thompson" Thomas, 1892 – 1974. RIP old rounder, what a pleasure knowing you.

Dick Mc Morran
June, 2007

Dick, just for you, I'll tell the only Titanic story that I have. I seen him in action only once down in Johnston City in the early 60s. He must have been 70 yrs old but he had 3 young girls traveling with him. He laid down a spread with an unwitting kid from Chicago named Tennesee Willy. Ti lost $400 to Willy playing 1pkt for $30 and $40 a game. He never made a ball, and was acting semi-senile. Willy was a very loud, obnoxious player and attracted a lot of attention. I knew Willy very well and he really thought the game was on the square, and was giving Ti plenty of "raspberries." I overheard the smart guys whispering that Ti was probably over the hill, and was now a ripe target. The next day Ti had his choice of good games. He locked somebody up good, I forgot who, but I remember the bet. His first bet was naturally, $400 a game!

Freddy the Beard


POKER HISTORY: GEORGE MCGANN: GAMBLER, CON MAN, HIT MAN, KENNEDY ASSASSIN???

George Albert McGann was this almost comic Texas road gambler and con man when we used to play poker and gin rummy together back in the mid-sixties in Lubbock, Texas. He was born in Big Spring about 1937. During the 1960s, Lubbock was a real center for big no-limit Texas Hold 'em games although we obviously just called it Hold 'em. Many of our opponents came from distant towns and nobody knew or cared where they got their money. Poker players were by definition outlaws. Jack "Treetop" Straus was playing one time with a guy who would leave the game and go rob a bank. The FBI followed the guy back to the poker game.

Treetop spoke for all gamblers when he told the FBI, most truthfully, "We don't know or care how he got that money."George was a real mystery man. He'd get out on the blacktop and go all over Texas and show up in the middle of the night at some poker game. He seemed to mostly lose. Like most practiced con men, he was most charming, likable, and extremely well dressed. Watch out for a player whose shoes are new and a little too fancy. And those pinkie rings. If you told George, "I like your watch or hat or sweater." He'd say, "It's for sale."

Once, George sold a bag of fake diamonds to this gullible gambler I knew. He told him they were hot diamonds from big Dallas burglaries that were in the newspaper. The guy had to promise to hide them for a decade before he moved them. George bragged about these things but he often told cryptic stories, talked in riddles, and hinted at a dark side.

Much has been written about George McGann being a hit man for the Dixie Mafia. Some of the Kennedy assassination researchers think George was involved, even one of the shooters. One of the huge factors in being a professional poker player back then was finding a game and keeping the game going. This led to a lot of loaning and staking. Be careful about borrowing because then you are obligated to make a loan to that guy. If it was the middle of the night and a guy says he is going to quit the poker game if it gets down to five-handed, you might put some railbird like George in the game if you were bigger behind than a cotton-patch spider.

I loaned George $150 once. He soaked two beautiful expensive sweaters. I wore them for a few years. He had this long list of the people he owed money to. He'd pull it out and show it to me. He said paying all the poker players around Texas back was very important to him.Years later, some Kennedy assassination researchers led by Gary Shaw of Ft. Worth. came here and we had dinner. He mailed me some pictures of George and George's list of debts. I was on it as were a Doyle, a Slim, and a Sailor. George would go down to Odessa and try the big game with all the future World Champs. He couldn't beat it and neither could I.

I wasn't afraid of George but I had not heard all these bad things. Looking back, I guess George could pump all that money on the tab because the smart money was afraid of him. He was the kind of poker and gin rummy player that you knew would go broke. On fifth street, he'd study and puzzle, and shake his butt all around in the chair and convince himself that some guy that had not bluffed since the Great Depression just had to be bluffing this time. If you held a hand, George would pay you off and he was pleasant about it with the con man's semi-permanent big smile on his face.One of the places we played was up this long flight of stairs.

The houseman kept a shotgun leaning against the wall visible to all players. Now it was expected that the houseman would have barking iron, but tastefully out of sight. Someone suggested he hide the shotgun if George came around. This was the first hint I had that the gambler's were wary of George and his nocturnal ramblings.Mornings might find me driving by several spots looking to play one of my side games, bridge or gin rummy. I'd prop folks to play heads-up Hold 'em but settle for gin. I'd try the golf course or one of the dice games before it opened.

A few times I went by George's fancy apartment in Lubbock's best apartment house. George had a whole closet full of fancy clothes and shoes. We'd play gin rummy and then go for mid-afternoon breakfast. I was careful not to break him but he was the type of gambler you could carry all the way to busted. I do not really remember ever seeing George win.One morning, we sat down to play gin rummy. He had left the two major suit nines in the card box on the kitchen cabinet. I figured this out early but didn't see any sense in saying anything. He knew two nines were gone. I knew two nines were gone. He did not know I knew. At first I thought he was holding them out. I jumped up and suddenly looked in his lap. Nothing was there.There was some other shiny-shirt road slick there. The way they kept carney-talking and eye-dancing each other, you'd know they gaffed he deck.

After I beat him out of a day's walking around money, I pulled up. I went in the kitchen and could see the cards in the box. Neither of us mentioned it. As George was getting ready to go to breakfast, he slipped a pair of brass knuckles in the front pocket of his very tight slacks. These showed for a mile. I asked him," Why don't you carry a pistol like everybody else?"He made a lengthy reply about his uncontrollable temper. He said he'd kill somebody if he had a gun.

Later, he did just that. George McGann told me a lot about Jerry James who he knew. James was on America's top ten most wanted. James robbed other outlaws all over the south. When the word hit the gambler's grapevine that James was in town, joints closed and folks stayed armed and indoors. George said that when I got robbed at a poker game, it would be Jerry James. James was later a leader in the New Mexico prison riot where thirty-nine were killed. He befriended Jimmie Chagra in prison at the behest of our government and James gained valuable information. Later, I was at a big poker game that was robbed by three masked gunmen. They told us to face the wall and not look and that was fine with me. Only one of them spoke but some of the players later said one of them might have been George. Big Fred threw his healthy bankroll behind the ice box and saved it.

After the robbers left, there was a hastily arranged small posse who had guns in their cars. They gave chase but played lucky they didn't get to smell any gun smoke on that particular beautiful summer night.George McGann told me the most curious thing of our friendship after the Kennedy assassination. He showed up with a brand new Cadillac that was red on the bottom and white on top. He said Jerry James had a matching Cadillac. George said that after the assassination, the Texas Rangers arrested him in East Texas and had at first mistaken him for Jerry James who they were chasing. George said they shuffled him around to various small town jails without charging him with anything. Finally, they let him go and drove him to the Cadillac which they had pushed off into a bar ditch and dented up.

George married Beverly Oliver, the so-called Bakuska Lady, a Dallas night club singer, who said she filmed the Kennedy assassination but the FBI stole her film. Most of what she said has been discredited. She said George killed Doris Grooms and George Fuqua. She was the source for the information that Ruby met Oswald in Oliver Stone's movie, JFK. Beverly Oliver said that she and George McGann met for several hours with Richard Nixon when he was running for President. If they played poker, I am sure Nixon won. He financed his early political career on poker winnings.

Buford Pusser of Walking Tall fame said George was one of the Dixie Mafia hit-men that killed his wife. It has been written that he killed George McGann but that was not true. A friend of mine was an eye witness to George McGann's killing in Lubbock, Texas, September 30, 1970. He was an old thirty-three. According to my friend, a group of honky-tonk hero’s numbering four were at a house in the middle of the night. George got a phone call from a woman who said that Jerry Meshell, 30, had abused her. George shot him twice, killing him, while the woman was still on the phone where she could hear. Then George didn't know what to do. He held my friend and Ronnie Weeden, 31, captive for several hours.

Finally, Weeden went to the back of the house and came back with a pistol. He killed George and did some time for it.I think the Kennedy assassination was a small Dallas-New Orleans conspiracy headed up by Carlos Marcello. At that time, bookies in Dallas laid off bets to Marcello, the real Mafia. Jack Ruby was a bookie. His telephone records are at Texas Tech's Southwest Collection. It is obvious he was calling Ft. Worth every few minutes in relation to Fall football. Do you think the Kennedy Assassination was a conspiracy?? I hope you like my old stories.

Johnny Hughes

PS. The "Big D" crowd of Johnny Hughes, Garren Hensley, Fibber, Billy T. Dyer and yes, even George Mc Gann were all former stake horse's of yours truly at one time or another. Pretty fast company for a dumb kid, huh ?