Senior Citizens!, what games would have been played in your bars, pubs or social clubs 30 years ago?..?

shuffle board. The kind with the long wooden table that you slide the heavy discs down to get as close to the other end without going over. They are still around and take a lot of practice. Some in my youth had a piano player and we gathered 'round and sang old songs. That is not a game but more of an activity. Some bars had pool tables but it seemed rather serious with challenging each other for money.

Drinking games. I remember some drinking game guys liked to get girls to play because it involved inbibing a lot of alcohol so the girls got drunk (however, I can't actually remember the game itself--something along the lines of strip poker or truth or dare I think). There was also this "game" the young women played--go to a bar holding happy hour with finger food (which was dinner for them) and get the men buy your drinks; then they'd leave (not with any guys) and go clubbing all night.

poker & pool. I think the poker was called Low Ball or Lo-Ball, but I'm not sure. Remember, both poker & pool start with "p," "p" rhymes with "t," & that stands for "trouble." Trouble right here in River City. Look out!

There was also some game table with wooden or plastic guys on rods with levers. Maybe it was called foosball. I think a couple of guys played at a time. I never played. I see on a search that these small home games are still sold at such places as Target & Sears.

There may have also been some sort of aiming game going on in the Men's Room, but I never took a look, so I don't really know.

There were always guys, too, playing each other or the bartender over a dice cup to see who would pay for the drinks.

There were pinball machines in the drugstore & lunch counter where some of us hung out while I was in college in the 60's. They may have had those in bars as well. I mainly remember hiking over to the lunch counter in the snow back in Okieville, then eating something cheap & filling like a short stack of pancakes or a bowl of chili with crackers while visiting with my crazy friends. Then often a couple of us would end up playing the pinball machines side-by-side.

Of course, aside from games, it was a big activity to pick songs on the jukebox. There were always plenty of opportunities to part fools from their money, me included, although I was fairly good & was always saving up for the next semester's tuition out of my part-time job, so I couldn't get too carried away.

If I went to a bar while in college, after I was 21 of course, we weren't into any games. Either a whole bunch of us or just 2 of us would lay claim to a booth & just talk. It wasn't really that often. We might also have beers when we went out to pizza, but that's a whole different atmosphere, mainly centered on eating the pizza, always adding plenty of those hot pepper sprinkles from a shaker. That was game enough.

Pool and air hockey are the only things I was good at, Every time I played darts someone ran out of the bar screaming. But 40 years ago it was the bowling machine.

Pool, Shuffle Board, Darts, in social clubs. In Bars 30 years ago we drank and played pool mostly.

Shove ha'penny had pretty much gone by then. We had bar billiards then the advent of pool; space invaders took over from pong; cribbage was popular; darts is still going; a few pubs had varieties of skittles.

Cribbage, dominoes, darts, pool, billiards, bar billiards (different to billiards), nap, shove ha'penny, wake-up-the-landlord, pour-yourself-a-pint, guess the shade of tar on the windows, when did the ashtrays last get emptied, what is the 'special' bit in the special bitter, what 'meat' is in the meat-raffle, and 'did you eat a pineapple cube? No, they're them new fangled urinal block-thingies. Your breath has improved though', and the good old 'lock-in tonight, Guv?'. Ahhhh, happy days......

Shucks, only 30 years ago? Like yesterday ... we played 8 ball, snooker, darts, shuffleboard. After hours, with the doors locked, "high stakes" poker.

We played 8 ball, darts, domino's, and

various dice games like Ship Captain Crew.

Pool, pinball and air hockey for the younger patrons, darts and dominoes for those getting on in their years.