Post #213048 by martiki on Mon, Feb 6, 2006 6:02 PM

On 2006-02-06 11:47, bigbrotiki wrote:

On 2006-02-06 06:30, martiki wrote:
I noticed that Trader Vic in his autobiography mentions that Bob Bryant was a childhood friend from grammar school in Oakland. He talks about them as children, but never says anything else about what later happened. I was surprised that he mentioned him at all, if the falling out was so bad ("Bob is dead to")

Wow! Really? I forgot who (and where) gave me that Matson line info....one of the Bergeron boys?...or maybe it was one of those boosted up bios where they wanted to make the meeting of the two men more interesting (like the shark got Vic's leg story).

Does it say anything more about Bob? In what context? I must admit that I never read the WHOLE damn book....

Well, it's certainly possible that Bryant worked for Matson as well. It was one of the biggest employers in SF at the time- HQ was on market st in a big building that's still there- they also owned Honolulu Oil Co., which was pretty big.

Of course, since Vic did end up designing drinks for the Matson Line ships and their hotel chain, Bryant working at Matson could explain how that came together.

The book does not mention anything about Bryant beyond he and Vic being childhood friends. I certainly don't blame you for not finishing the book- I hate to say it, but it's among the worst I've ever read! Terrible writing, no editing, disjointed. Sadly, it's really bad.