I first stepped foot in Guthrie’s in July of 1989 when co-workers decided to take the new guy (yours truly) out for a ‘welcome to Bakersfield drink.’

When we arrived the place was full of patrons and seating was at a premium. We had several people in our party and approached a man sitting in the corner booth. He had one arm outstretched in a horizontal ‘salute’. He was wearing a cast and it was clear he had recently broken his collarbone.

We offered to buy him another draft if he’d share his table with us.

Unfortunately he agreed and it became painfully obvious that he’d been there for a while and already had enough as he immediately stumbled off to the restroom. 

But against our better judgement we sat down and enjoyed our social grouping. 

It was allowed back then.

It was a different time for sure.

When the guy returned he was agitated and demanded we relinquish the seat. Then he violently flung himself into the booth where several of us scrambled to grab our freshly-poured drinks to protect them from the heaving table. He was on a roll and started to get more physical and shouldered hard into one of my new workmates. 

I was on the other end of the table and shot up, grabbed the guy to pull him away from the others. He was super drunk and – let’s face it – he was in an upper body cast and not in a condition that would allow him to protect himself.

When I grabbed him he was belligerent and swinging at me with his good arm, so the only course I had (in my mind) was to spin him around and give him the rush out of the swinging doors to the Alley.

His cast and blood alcohol level made him easy to maneuver and when I was depositing him outside I felt someone strongly grab my collar and the rear belt loop of my pants. It was Bill Taylor the bartender on duty (along with Mike McGraw who stayed behind to keep an eye on the bar).

He gave me a shove and said “You’re eighty-sixed! Don’t come back!”

I would have done the same thing had I been the bartender.

Needless to say I appealed to him (over several weeks) until he finally believed that I wasn’t a liability.  

The rest, as they say…is history.