Here's an excerpt of an interview I conducted a few years back with Bill "Weenie Beenie" Staton. Some of this, as I recall, ended up in Hustler Days. Staton references in this interview his hot dog stand. That's a picture of the last of his hot dog stands at the top of this post.
Earl Shriver, Squirrel (Marshall Carpenter), Daddy Warbucks – they were all out in Arkansas. Minnesota Fats was there too. It was 1960. And I beat every one of them. I did. Some of them gave me spots, like they used to give me, but I had improved a bit. This was Blytheville, Arkansas.
What attracted them was this guy. Everybody went out there to play him. He was a bookmaker, and he had a lot of money, and he spread it around. He was a winner. I started playing him. He was the one who attracted people there. Daddy Warbucks, Hubert Cokes. Squirrel was there. And Earl Shriver was there. They all congregated there. There was action galore.
I like to say I made over a million dollars. (That’s because) I won $27,000, and I went home and wanted to invest it. I told my lawyer that I won this money, and I wanted to invest it. He said, ‘Bill, you have to declare that on income tax.’ So, I declared it on my income tax, and then built a little hotdog stand. It was 12 foot wide and 20 foot long. It’s still located in Alexandria, Virginia. The way I figure I made $1 million is from the rent I’ve been collecting all these years.
-- R.A. Dyer
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