MUSKEGON, Mich. — During a week day at a bar, you never know what to expect. Some rack up tabs. Others rack up the next game at the pool table.
“If you're gonna fall in love with something, pool’s the thing to fall in love with," said Lori Supernaw.
With a crowd like the one that takes over 46 Bar in Muskegon on Wednesday nights, you can always expect the unexpected.
“This group's name is Greater Muskegon Area Women's Pocket Billiard League, and it's a really long mouthful to say, but we've shortened it to GMAWPABLE. That's all of our initials together, they actually almost make a word," laughed Lori.
Lori is the president of the league. For her, finding an activity in retirement like pool may not sound like that much of a curve ball.
But the friendship she found? That's a stroke of luck.
The group of 160 women in GMAWPABLE, ages 21 to late 80s, are as inseparable as chalk on a pool stick.
“I've met some of the most giving loving, special, talented women that I could have never found in any other thing that I chose to do," said Lori. "They love being around each other.”
Some members are brand new to the world of billiards, others have been competing in the group for over 50 years. It doesn't matter to the members, as long as you're friendly.
"It's such a great cross section of women," she said. “We have women who are busy working two to three jobs, we have women come with in wheelchairs, we've had women come with oxygen on."
"But they never miss a Wednesday night," she laughed.
Cue Linda Rostar. She’s been in the league for 43 years.
“It keeps me young at heart," she laughed.
She plays alongside her competitors, in theory — her friends, in reality.
“Some of them I grew up with as a child," Linda explained. “Some years, you take first place some years you take last place, doesn't matter. Everybody claps for you.”
“The giving and the love amongst us, it means the world," she said.
It's that love that seems to keep on rolling. Just like it did over to Muskegon County Courthouse one morning this week.
GMAWPABLE came to the courthouse to deliver a check to two local Muskegon charities, Kids Belong and the Jaeger Foundation. Each totaled $3,100 from a single tournament the women put on.
"When you get involved in something, the best feeling you can get is that you're giving back. And we’re doing that. We’ve been doing that for 50 years," said Lori.
On a week day at a bar, some settle the tab. This group of competitors turned lifelong friends, settle the score.
“I plan on doing this for another 20 years, and I'm 70," laughed Linda. "Till I can't get around that pool table anymore, I'll be doing it.”
It's a sisterhood feeling — over a table of felt.
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