LEWISTON – A non-pool player wouldn’t understand, he says. There’s some indescribable difference between playing with a really nice pool cue and an ordinary stick.

Think wearing a Rolex on your wrist versus a Timex.

“When I’m watching the pros on TV, half the time I’m looking to see what kind of cue he’s playing with,” said Dave Lebel.

He’s spent about two decades collecting pool cues. His wife, Kathy – then his girlfriend – bought him the first one in 1990. Lebel had joined a candle pin bowling league at L&A Lanes as a teen. She wasn’t interested, so she’d play pool on the back tables instead. Eventually, she got him playing.

“Every cue I bought, it was almost like (Kathy) was my little sister – I’d pass it down to her. She didn’t like that,” Lebel said. “That’s when collecting started, when she bought her second cue and told me to put her first cue away.”

They have 28 cues, and he’s played pool with each. Every stick plays a little different. There are slight differences in balance, slight differences with the tip. He stores them in cases that look like something between a golfer’s bag and lawyer’s attaché with gold buckles and leather pockets.

“It’s PVC inside. You could drive a car over it and not hurt anything,” Lebel said.

One cue had belonged to a man who snapped it over his knee at the end of a tournament, mad at how he’d played, then threw it away.

“I picked it out of the trash can and sent it back to the manufacturer for repair,” Lebel said. Now it’s good as new.

Another is a limited edition Harley-Davidson. Only 100 were made that particular year. He bought no. 88, the same number as race car driver Dennis Dee, a friend who died in a race at Oxford Plains Speedway. For that reason, the cue means a lot.

“I thought about that when I first took it out today,” Lebel said.

Dave and Kathy, who own Schemengee’s pool hall on Lincoln Street in Lewiston, still play in several leagues. Their in-house league starts this Tuesday. (The season is September to April.) They’ve traveled to Las Vegas a few times for the Valley National 8-Ball League Association International Championships. Four years ago, Kathy Lebel got so good she considered going pro.

“She plays as good as the women you see on TV,” Dave Lebel said, then he laughed. “And I play almost as good as the women you see on TV.”