Vallejo Horse and Cow Rooftop? Submarine Info

[B F Lake]

Info from April 2001 local paper:

Dina and Lee Vigil recently bought a house on Humboldt street and found a 23
foot submarine in the backyard.
It turned out to be a rooftop decoration from the nearby rambunctious
Navy bar called the Horse and Cow. The sub was hauled off to a Mare Island
scrap shop, Lee's business.
Inside the sub was a hard hat and a bunch of crushed Olympia beer cans.
The hard hat had the number 330 on it, a bulls eye target on the top and an
American flag, and the name ,R. Bolt/Ship Supt.
The house had belonged to a friend of former owner of the Horse and Cow,
James Looby, and this friend was saving the sub the last four years for
James who moved to Washington. Looby's son Mike has opened a Horse and Cow
in San Diego. Mike says the sub was given to his father by the captain of
USS CAIMAN around 1975. (NB Your spy notes she was transferred to Turkey in
1972) The captain had "got it" from a recruitment centre on Hunter's Point
Naval Shipyard.
Mike says his San Diego Horse and Cow is doing well, and he plans to
open another in Bremerton, Washington for the Northwest submariners.
The collection of submarine memorabilia in the Horse and Cow was "ten
times better than what we had here", said Jim Kern, who runs the Vallejo
Naval and Historical Museum. James Looby took his collection to
Washington.
Dina Vigil, 32, worked as a bartender at My Office, another sailor
watering hole in town that still exists. She remembers the raucous Horse
and Cow well. "It was kind of a wild, sticky, wet bar with sticky, wet
floors and nasty bathrooms," she laughed. "There was blaring loud music and
everyone just drank. It was a wild military bar."
A week later, in Vacaville, Ralph Bolt got his hard hat back. He
recognized his hat and Dina because he also drank at My Office.
A master chief named Herbie from USS PARCHE was a friend of Bolt.
More than twenty years ago, Bolt had taken Herbie's brass dolphins that were
framed on a plaque in his quarters. In retaliation, Herbie stole Bolt's
hard hat and welded it into the large steel submarine that sat in the back
of the Horse and Cow's dance floor. (NB Your spy notes discrepancy wrt to
earlier rooftop report)
Bolt eventually returned Herbie's dolphins when he retired. The scene
of the crime , the Horse and Cow,was Bolt's second home. "I basically lived
there." He was a machinist mate on a submarine. He remembers Surf Night
when they trucked over tons of sand and turned the interior of the bar into
a beach.
After his service , Bolt spent 24 years on Mare Island. A worker
remembers his boss Bolt, 52, who has terminal cancer, "I never met anybody
else like him and probably never will. I think most guys at Mare Island who
worked in nuclear repair have a 'Bolt story' ."

Regards,
Barry

[DN]

Barry, The submarine you mention sounds like the one that belonged to the USNR
Submarine Reserve unit(s) that used to drill on the USS PAMPANITO, first on the
Vallejo side of the river and from about '60 on, on the Mare Island side just
north of the causeway. It used to be used in parades as a recruiting gimmick;
It went missing about the time the submarine NRT program was disbanded.
As for Bolt, I heard just a few months ago that he had passed away....guess
it was a bogus rumor.

DN
--Remove "nojunk" to Email--

[B F Lake]

"DN" <ship...@aol.comnojunk> wrote

> As for Bolt, I heard just a few months ago that he had passed
away....guess
> it was a bogus rumor.

Maybe. It was from the April 19 and 26 Times-Herald earlier this year that
had been saved for our recent visit. It does say Bolt was from Vallejo and
his first submarine after enlisting was VALLEJO.

Bolt was diagnosed in 1994 with cancer which he said was from the asbestos
from his job on Mare Island. He was given six-months estimated time to live
and had to retire then. So he beat that time for sure. Wife Jenni and
five kids.

The reporter on the Bolt story was Matthias Gafni at mga...@thnewsnet.com
who may know more since April.

Regards,
Barry

[Duke of URL]

"DN" <ship...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20011108195941...@mb-mh.aol.com...

> It went missing about the time the submarine NRT program was disbanded.

What's an NRT? I *know* you don't mean Nuclear Reactor Training.

[DN]

>> It went missing about the time the submarine NRT program was disbanded.
>
>What's an NRT? I *know* you don't mean Nuclear Reactor Training.

From the end of WW II until about 1970, the USN had USNR submarine program
centered around dockside training boats which were immobilized (no propellors)
and demiliterized (no torpedo tubes), they were pretty much just floating
classrooms. NRT = "Naval Reserve Trainer", they were all WW II fleet boats.

[Jdf4cheval]

For many years a bar on or near outer 3rd Street in San Francisco had a large
submarine model on its roof. I assumed the owner was an old submariner. I saw
what I thought was the same "boat" years later somewhere over in the East Bay.
Does this fit into the topic at all?

[B F Lake]

"Jdf4cheval" <jdf4c...@aol.com> wrote

Yes, but it would help pin it down if there were some time frames for these
sightings. Meanwhile, the discovery of this 23 foot sub full of crushed
Olympia beer cans heightens long-held suspicions concerning stories of a
full-sized sub USTAFISH which supposedly only serves single malts and proper
ales. A "fish story" indeed!

Regards,
Barry

[Owen Carlson]

Possibly. The first H&C I got into (1963) was north of Market in SF,
having moved there sometime earlier from the Hunter's Point Naval
Shipyard region. Far south 3rd gets out that way, doesn't it.

It was still inhabited by a bunch of the boat sailors whose boats were
being overhauled at Hunter's Point. Plus a bunch of very colorful
people with names like "Raincoat Charley" and "Snorkle Patty".

I'm not sure when it moved to Vallejo from SF - it was in Vallejo when
I next got back there in 1981.

I don't recall ever seeing it on the roof. Then, again, after an
"upside down" margarita or two .....

[DN]

>........and "Snorkle Patty".
>
Now THERE'S a name from the past!!!

[DN]

>Possibly. The first H&C I got into (1963) was north of Market in SF,
>having moved there sometime earlier from the Hunter's Point Naval
>Shipyard region. Far south 3rd gets out that way, doesn't it.
>
>It was still inhabited by a bunch of the boat sailors whose boats were
>being overhauled at Hunter's Point. Plus a bunch of very colorful
>people with names like "Raincoat Charley" and "Snorkle Patty".
>
>I'm not sure when it moved to Vallejo from SF - it was in Vallejo when
>I next got back there in 1981.
>
>I don't recall ever seeing it on the roof. Then, again, after an
>"upside down" margarita or two .....
>

I don't remember the Horse & Cow being in SF at all (before anyone can
start, that means "I don't remember the Horse & Cow being in SF at all). I
remember the Rose and Thistle (complete w/ Snorkle Patty) during that same era.
Spent a little time at Hunters Point in CAPITAINE.

[lylej...@gmail.com]

Does any have any pictures of that place? Many, many wild parties in Vallejo started there.

[redan...@gmail.com]

Snorkel Patty.. Met her when the Horse and Cow was on S. Third St. In San Fran. If you whant 2 know how the the Sub got to the H&C. Let me know nefote I krook.

[rbrt...@gmail.com]

The sub was removed from the roof because the Vallejo city said it was old and could come crashing down. So it was brought Down, overhauled, repainted and numbered 333 1/3, USS Horse n Cow. Showtime Cable came in and filmed it. I was in it. I spent many a nights there closing it out. Jimmy and Mikey and the gang had a saying. When I went to the HnC in San Diego I got about half way across the bar and yelled out, FROM THE HEART MIKEY FROM THE HEART. Mike looked up and with a wide smile, scanned his radar across the bar and saw me. He then yelled, From the Heart Bob, from the heart. My money was no good there.

[rbrt...@gmail.com]

[jonathanr...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, December 23, 2018 at 6:45:20 PM UTC-5, redan...@gmail.com wrote:
> Snorkel Patty.. Met her when the Horse and Cow was on S. Third St. In San Fran. If you whant 2 know how the the Sub got to the H&C. Let me know nefote I krook.

Does anyone know the story of Snorkel Patty being smuggled in a diesel boat from San Diego (San Francisco?) to Hawaii?

Thanks,

Jonathan Ross
USS Sabalo (SS-302)
EM3 (SS)