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Weenie Beenie: A Filet in a Hot Dog World
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| Lucky dog: Staton eased into retirement down South, but kept his chops. |
Staton spent better than a $1,000 (in 1950s dollars) to recoup a $55 loss. He practiced on that top-of-the line Brunswick, and kept practicing, and Woodbridge kept beating him. So, too, did just about anybody else. But Staton kept at, he took his lumps, he took lessons, he gambled, he got better. He may have played like a chump at age 23; not so by age 30.
"I became seriously interested in pool when I first lost money at it," he explained. "I started playing anybody. That was 1952, 1953 - and it didn't make any difference who it was. I'd play people I didn't know. I would walk into poolrooms, and they would service my account. They were hustlers, and they would come from all over the country. I got to know most of the big players; players who had no way of making a living back in the 1950s. …
"But I was very fortunate I did not have to depend on pool to make a living. I was able to be a businessman-player. I had some little hot-dog stands - I had six at one time - and I had a truck stop, and I had two poolrooms."
And this brings us to that other Weenie Beenie: Weenie Beenie the businessman, Weenie Beenie the chamber-of-commerce type. He lived an impractical and improbable double life, and in some ways it came to define him. He recalled sometimes looking both ways before going into Lyle's "just to make sure none of our country club friends were watching." He and his brother grew one hot-dog stand into many, and then he ventured into other businesses. Even his hustling name spoke to his dual nature: "Weenie Beenie" was what he called his orange-and-yellow hot-dog stands. At first, these stands supported his expensive poolroom habit; later, his billiard winnings helped support the hot-dog stands.
A road-trip in 1960 to Blytheville, Ark., was responsible for funding one of the stands, Weenie Beenie told me.
"I like to say I made over $1 million [on that trip]," Staton said. "I won $27,000 and I went home and wanted to invest it. … So I declared it on my income tax, and then built a little hot-dog stand. It was 12-foot-wide and 20-foot-long. … The way I figure I made $1 million is from the rent [I've collected]."
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