E.S.D. Great job on the banner..just what I was hoping for...I think the digital camera should be our new technology...just take pictures and look for the blue streak...or wait for Nick to go through and look for the yellow streak... :chagrin:
Probably not a big deal to everyone, but the guy who taught me how to be a bartender (and probably a better man) retired last night. Truly one of the neatest men I've ever met. I met him 7 years ago and he still knows what I drink, just by seeing me, even if he doesn't really remember my name. Here's Boxmeyer's article about him.
Here's to Vince
He was so popular, people called to see when he was working. Friends honored Vince Rayburn last night at the Cherokee, where he spent 26 years as resident character.
BY DON BOXMEYER
Pioneer Press
Everyone knew when Vince Rayburn was the bartender.
'We had to put another guy on duty when Vince was working,' one old St. Paul restaurant owner recalls. 'Someone had to get the drinks out while Vince entertained the customers down at his end of the bar.
"One minute he's reciting poetry, the next minute he's arm-wrestling some boxer or taking a bet and lighting a customer's cigarette all at the same time. He had to have been the world's most popular bartender. People called just to find out when Vince would be working."
It's not like Vince had a line or anything.
"Only one thing kept me from high school," says Vince, holding forth one recent afternoon from the rathskeller in his East Side home.
"Grade school."
Vince, who turns 85 next week, has concocted his last fuzzy navel at the Cherokee Sirloin Room in West St. Paul, where he was bartender and resident character for 26 years. The Cherokee threw a party Wednesday night celebrating his career and his coming birthday.
Before he started at the Cherokee, Vince tended bar at Gallivan's on Wabasha Street from 1959 to 1968, building a repertoire of stories about his favorite characters who were often three-deep around the bar.
Vic Anderson Jr., a lawyer, would show up every day and place his order.
"Nectar," Vic would say, "for a god."
Gallivan's, where Matty B's now is, was the ready-room for City Hall; where judges and lawyers went to really try the cases, where thirsty reporters went to find their stories and make up new ones, where the politicians and all kinds of other people who considered themselves important went for reinforcement.
"Leo Mauer was the head bartender when I got to Gallivan's," Vince says. "He told me, 'Hey, kid, take a good look up and down this bar and tell me how you can believe in God.' "
Vince, who grew up in St. Paul in the shadow of the Cathedral, didn't quite make it past elementary school. He took a train to where he could get on a boat to Europe, and that's where he stayed until 1939. He was in Germany, a bellhop in a hotel, when he made an entry in his diary March 2, 1939. Vince still has the little green book, and the scrawled, penciled script reads tersely, "Today I saw Hitler. He came along, after getting a good look at him I followed along watching Hitler every minute until not allowed to go further."
Wasn't long after that that young Vincent Rayburn came back to St. Paul. He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps stacking logs in Michigan and then joined the Navy. He made it to Pearl Harbor for the Christmas season of 1941, where he helped clean up the mess the Japanese had made of the place. Vince spent the war in the Pacific and made it home only once before the end in 1945.
Somehow, he got into bartending in California, where he began collecting characters. He remembers Bela Lugosi, Hollywood's original Count Dracula, and how he would say, "I vud like a colt glahs of bier."
His walls are lined with letters and photos from Cary Grant, Cesar Romero, Agnes Moorhead, Pat O'Brien and Myrna Loy. He once traded girl-hunting tips with Basil Rathbone. He got to know boxer Willy Pepp and formed lifelong friendships with famed Yankees Manager Ralph Houk and Minnesota Vikings coach Norm Van Brocklin.
But his most enduring friendships occurred after he returned to St. Paul when he started meeting such locally famous newsmen as Roger Rosenblum, Ralph Reeve, Glen Redmann, Bill Cento, Don Riley and Don Del Fiacco.
"Del Fiacco wanted me to write a book about my life and call it 'Life On the Rocks,' but it never happened," says Vince.
The late Arno Goethel, who was executive sports editor of the Pioneer Press and Dispatch, created this limerick at the bar of Gallivan's one day:
"There once was a bartender named Vince
Who made love to the Dionne Quints.
He said, 'Man alive
I can't handle five,'
And we haven't heard from Vince since."
Bill Cento was managing editor of the Dispatch and has a special reason to remember Vince.
"How could you ever forget the person who introduced you to your wife of 42 years?" Bill says. "That's a gift that Vera and I thought about frequently throughout our years together. Vince was special to both of us, remains so and will for as long as memories last." Bill lost Vera in December.
Vince was a teacher for a while at the bartending college in St. Paul and once told a reporter, "You
The timer was ticking....
besides the one I just stole from LilMan
hahahaha j/k man what's new?
Have you checked out my new website I used homestead to do it like you said.
Doing good here. Good to see everyone around again!
And this is why I will never hunt at night again :cool:
Hello All!
Will you be able to make it up for the PDG?
Owatonna is great love it I can sit on my deck at night and I don't hear any gun fire.
Great Job ESD! :cool:
Here's to Vince
He was so popular, people called to see when he was working. Friends honored Vince Rayburn last night at the Cherokee, where he spent 26 years as resident character.
BY DON BOXMEYER
Pioneer Press
Everyone knew when Vince Rayburn was the bartender.
'We had to put another guy on duty when Vince was working,' one old St. Paul restaurant owner recalls. 'Someone had to get the drinks out while Vince entertained the customers down at his end of the bar.
"One minute he's reciting poetry, the next minute he's arm-wrestling some boxer or taking a bet and lighting a customer's cigarette all at the same time. He had to have been the world's most popular bartender. People called just to find out when Vince would be working."
It's not like Vince had a line or anything.
"Only one thing kept me from high school," says Vince, holding forth one recent afternoon from the rathskeller in his East Side home.
"Grade school."
Vince, who turns 85 next week, has concocted his last fuzzy navel at the Cherokee Sirloin Room in West St. Paul, where he was bartender and resident character for 26 years. The Cherokee threw a party Wednesday night celebrating his career and his coming birthday.
Before he started at the Cherokee, Vince tended bar at Gallivan's on Wabasha Street from 1959 to 1968, building a repertoire of stories about his favorite characters who were often three-deep around the bar.
Vic Anderson Jr., a lawyer, would show up every day and place his order.
"Nectar," Vic would say, "for a god."
Gallivan's, where Matty B's now is, was the ready-room for City Hall; where judges and lawyers went to really try the cases, where thirsty reporters went to find their stories and make up new ones, where the politicians and all kinds of other people who considered themselves important went for reinforcement.
"Leo Mauer was the head bartender when I got to Gallivan's," Vince says. "He told me, 'Hey, kid, take a good look up and down this bar and tell me how you can believe in God.' "
Vince, who grew up in St. Paul in the shadow of the Cathedral, didn't quite make it past elementary school. He took a train to where he could get on a boat to Europe, and that's where he stayed until 1939. He was in Germany, a bellhop in a hotel, when he made an entry in his diary March 2, 1939. Vince still has the little green book, and the scrawled, penciled script reads tersely, "Today I saw Hitler. He came along, after getting a good look at him I followed along watching Hitler every minute until not allowed to go further."
Wasn't long after that that young Vincent Rayburn came back to St. Paul. He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps stacking logs in Michigan and then joined the Navy. He made it to Pearl Harbor for the Christmas season of 1941, where he helped clean up the mess the Japanese had made of the place. Vince spent the war in the Pacific and made it home only once before the end in 1945.
Somehow, he got into bartending in California, where he began collecting characters. He remembers Bela Lugosi, Hollywood's original Count Dracula, and how he would say, "I vud like a colt glahs of bier."
His walls are lined with letters and photos from Cary Grant, Cesar Romero, Agnes Moorhead, Pat O'Brien and Myrna Loy. He once traded girl-hunting tips with Basil Rathbone. He got to know boxer Willy Pepp and formed lifelong friendships with famed Yankees Manager Ralph Houk and Minnesota Vikings coach Norm Van Brocklin.
But his most enduring friendships occurred after he returned to St. Paul when he started meeting such locally famous newsmen as Roger Rosenblum, Ralph Reeve, Glen Redmann, Bill Cento, Don Riley and Don Del Fiacco.
"Del Fiacco wanted me to write a book about my life and call it 'Life On the Rocks,' but it never happened," says Vince.
The late Arno Goethel, who was executive sports editor of the Pioneer Press and Dispatch, created this limerick at the bar of Gallivan's one day:
"There once was a bartender named Vince
Who made love to the Dionne Quints.
He said, 'Man alive
I can't handle five,'
And we haven't heard from Vince since."
Bill Cento was managing editor of the Dispatch and has a special reason to remember Vince.
"How could you ever forget the person who introduced you to your wife of 42 years?" Bill says. "That's a gift that Vera and I thought about frequently throughout our years together. Vince was special to both of us, remains so and will for as long as memories last." Bill lost Vera in December.
Vince was a teacher for a while at the bartending college in St. Paul and once told a reporter, "You