New Blog: PINK EYE SURPRISE joined in the banter. Hell, he ran the place and Sweeney and Jessica just kind of took together, sort of a mutual admiration society. We've all known Sweeney for years. It started out a just a bunch of kids that liked to play pool and never abused the place or the owner. For that respect he's always allowed us to play there and even sometimes when we were broke he'd let us play freebies. As the circle grew to include girlfriends and wives, Sweeney would introduce himself as Sweeney. None of the other regulars were allowed to call him that and if they did he corrected them by telling them to call him Jim or Mr. Sweeney. If they asked why we called him Sweeney, he'd tell them that name was reserved for family or very close friends. Hell, his wife Lana called him Sweeney before she died. We were all at Lana's funeral in fact we were almost the only ones there. There was history with this man and mutual respect going back to our discovery years. We discovered girls and booze and cigarettes and even some "soft" drugs. He was our brother at times, our fathers at other times, our confidant and our lecturer. More than a few of us were taken to task by Old Man Sweeney and once or twice by his wife. They always extended that relationship to our girlfriends, too.
