Getting the boot at Hussong’s

While not a record holder myself, I have been associated with two notable records.

Many moons ago, Sam Oxarart, his brother Charlie and I were diving in Ensenada. Diving was lousy, so Charlie and I went in, telling Sam we would be at Hussong’s. Now Sam was a lousy diver. We called him “U-turn Sam” because his head was coming up at the same time his feet were going under. However, after we left, Sam came face to face with a huge bull lobster, grabbed it and somehow wrestled it to shore.

And so it was that Charlie and I were having a drink in Hussong’s when Sam appeared with this big bull lobster. Proud as could be of his catch, Sam went to the end of the bar, aimed the lobster down the bar toward his brother and let it go.

Now, as everyone knows, lobsters travel backward by slapping their tails up against their bodies. So this big lobster came galumphing down the bar. About half the population of Ensenada was sitting at that bar. It was quite a sight, glasses going in all directions, drinkers falling backward off their chairs, and Dick Hussong, the bartender, trying to restore some kind of decorum.

Finally, Sam corralled his lobster, grabbed it and was holding it firmly when Hussong threw Sam and his lobster out of the place. Sam tried to go back in. Hussong barred the way. Sam uttered one of the priceless lines of Ensenada history.

Sam said, “But, Dick, no one has ever been thrown out of Hussong’s.”

To which Hussong replied: “I know, Sam. You have set a record that will probably never be challenged.”

But wait.

Flash forward some 40 years. I am in Hussong’s with another Sam ? my granddaughter, Samantha, who was 5 at the time. We were at the bar waiting for her mother and grandmother to join us when the bartender said that while I could stay, Samantha had to leave.

So I was with the first person ever eighty-sixed from Hussong’s, and with the youngest ever to be eighty-sixed. I suppose that is some sort of record.