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In the summer of 1972 my ship, HMCS Saguenay, was part of the NATO Squadron. Our deployment was the eastern seaboard of North America. We conducted joint exercises off the coast and visited several ports for R&R (rest and recreation). One of the ports was New York City; this piece describes an incident that took place during our visit to the ‘Big Apple’.
One afternoon four of us – Wayne Robertson, Steve Goodchild, Dudley MacDonald and I – set out to go ashore. New York has several ethnic districts. Irish town was our destination, having heard about it from some of our shipmates at tot time.1
After a rather long taxi ride, we found ourselves sitting on four stools at a bar named ‘Paddy’s Pub’ on West 38th Street in the heart of Irish Town. Besides the four of us, there was one other patron in the establishment – a fat old floozy. She had blond hair covered with a bonnet, and wore bright red lipstick. She was also sitting at the bar, but separated from us on the right by two stools. She struck up a conversation with Dudley, who was the closest.
The conversation revealed the fact that we were Canadian sailors. This caught the attention of the bartender – Paddy himself. Paddy owned and operated the bar bearing his name. He ambled over, leaned against his side of the bar and said, “I’ve never had the pleasure of hosting Canadian sailors, but I’ve been told that y’all are great drinkers.”
Wayne said, “You heard right!” The remainder of us gave enthusiastic responses to the affirmative.
With that he said, “Then I suggest that you drink Irish whisky.”
We all said, “Set ‘em up!”
With that, Paddy poured four shots of Irish whiskey and placed them in front of us while saying, “Don’t drink them yet.” He then said, “I’ll also pour you four glasses of beer.” He proceeded to set them in front of us while saying, “When I say ‘Go’ you all knock back your shot and then chase it with the beer.” The four shots and four glasses of beer were now in front of us. He asked, “Are you ready?”
“Ready,” we exclaimed!
“Ok, Go!”
We all had our fists wrapped around the shot glasses when he said it. With the ‘Go,’ we simultaneously knocked back the shots; slammed the empty shot glasses back onto the bar; grabbed the beers; threw them down our throats; and slammed the glasses back on the bar as well. The actions were all in unison. On completion we all uttered a sigh of satisfaction – ahhh!
“How was that,” Paddy asked?
We all said, “Smooooth.”
“Again,” he asked?
“Set ‘em up,” was the joint reply!
Paddy set them up and we all did it again…and again…and then again at intervals of about one minute. On the fourth go, the real fun began.
I couldn’t keep the fourth shot down. It got into my gut alright, but while the others were chasing theirs’ I puked in my beer glass, but none of the others noticed the fact because they were chasing their drinks. I slammed my glass full of puke on the bar at the same time the others slammed down their empty glasses.
I was sitting beside Steve Goodchild. I nudged him and said, “If you’re so good, drink this!” He thought it was just beer, so without looking he grabbed it and drank it in one go. When he slammed down the glass I laughed and said, “That was my puke!”
He swished the remnants around in his mouth a few times. Then, upon realizing it was true, he gave me a horrified look, and promptly turned and puked his guts out all over Dudley, who was sitting on his right. Dudley ended up with Steve’s tot, lunch, Irish whiskies and beers all over his shirt and pants. The remainder of us, including Paddy and the floozy roared with laughter.
Poor Dudley. While he was in the heads (toilet) cleaning up Paddy – still laughing – said, “That was the best show we’ve had in here in ages.”
When Dudley emerged from the heads, his front was all wet, but the evidence of being barfed upon was gone. We paid up, thanked Paddy, said goodbye to the floozy and carried on to another pub.
On the way out Paddy yelled, “Y’all come again now! Ha. Ha.”
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is one of several stories about ‘Life at Sea and Ashore in the Canadian Navy during the Cold War.’ Did you land here directly from a search engine? If so, you can go to the home page and access more stories by
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