Back in the late 60s, after she flunked out of Ohio State because she decided she’d rather drink beer and raise hell than study, Helaine Garren returned to Chicago in shame and moved back in with her parents, who wanted her to marry a nice Jewish boy. Instead, she got a job in the finance office at Northwestern’s downtown campus and spent her lunch hours shooting pool on the table in the office basement with her friend Bonnie. “I had a perfect Mosconi bridge,” she recalls now. Later they took their act on the road to a series of seedy bars and pool halls where Bonnie would play all evening and Garren would stuff her pockets with her winnings.
After she handed in her assignment, Edwards summoned her to his office. She watched as he separated the photos into two piles. “He pointed to one,” she remembers, “and said, ‘Those are the ones I would like to buy.’ It was the biggest honor of my entire life. I just about fainted.”
So Garren, now 71, is doing what any pool hustler would do: she’s going to Vegas. This week happens to be the International Billiards & Home Recreation Expo, and Billiards Digest has allowed Garren some space in its booth to talk up the book. “If I don’t come up with the money in Vegas,” she says, “I’m gonna be sitting at the blackjack table. I did win $500 in Reno once.”
