Those Were the Days My Friend: Flora-Bama Lounge Owner Pat McClellan Dies

Flora-Bama Lounge owner Pat McClellan dies. Google

Tales From the MoJo Road –
By Glynn Wilson –

COULTERVILLE, Calif. – So you may agree with me that social media sux in many ways. But it is good for a thing or two still, like finding out when someone dies. It has come to my attention, thanks to Facebook, that my old friend and fan Pat McClellan, one of the owners of the Flora-Bama Roadhouse Lounge on the Gulf Coast, just died peacefully in his sleep with supportive friends and family around. That is the best way to go, if you must go.

So this morning, I feel compelled to tell this story about him.

It was the spring of 1993 and my days were numbered as a newspaper reporter for pissing off the Navy brass on the Gulf Coast. But I was still freelancing for the wire service UPI and a few magazines, and hanging out at the Flora-Bama Roadhouse Lounge on the Alabama-Florida line.

My great friend and fan Pat McClellan, the managing partner of the bar who framed and hung many of my news story clips all over the walls of the place, was in the middle of planning and promoting the Interstate Mullet Toss. It was a major party event on the beach where Kenny “the Snake” Stabler was the celebrity host who tossed out the first mullet every year back then.

The Snake

You may recall his name as Quarterback for the Oakland Raiders for 10 years, where in 1976 the team won their first Super Bowl title in Super Bowl XI, beating the Minnesota Vikings 32–14. He was posthumously inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.

Alabama fans will remember him as quarterback of the Crimson Tide football team where he earned first-team All-American honors in 1967 and was selected by the Raiders in the second round of the 1968 NFL/AFL draft. As a junior in 1966, he took over the starting quarterback position and led the Tide to an undefeated, 11–0 season which ended in a 34–7 rout of Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl. Despite the unblemished record, Alabama was snubbed by the polls, finishing third behind Notre Dame and Michigan State, neither of which played in a bowl.

The Beach Beat

Anyway, sad to see my reporting and column called The Beach Beat disappear from the pages of the six twice-weekly newspapers in Baldwin County on the east side of Mobile Bay, Pat had a proposition.

In those days the office of the bar was lined with four drawer filing cabinets full of cash from the various bars in the place as well as the Florida Lottery money, with small paper sacks wrapped in rubber bands with $1,000 in each one. It took two Brinks trucks to haul all the cash out of the place on Monday mornings.

Knowing my plight, and my talents, he hired me to help promote the Mullet Toss that year. Every time I showed up at the bar, he would not only buy my Royal Red Shrimp, Corona beers with a lime and shots of tequila. He would hand me a fistful of cash.

“Hell, I could give this money to the government,” he would say. “But I would rather give it to you.”

So one day we had a meeting and came up with the idea to write a letter to the editor of the Guinness Book of World Records to try getting the Mullet Toss included in the famous book. Predictably, we got a letter back from a snooty British editor who turned it down, which actually turned into the best promotional idea ever.

I quoted both letters and wrote a funny news feature for the Miami bureau of UPI about it. Wish I still had the clip.

I pointed out that the book contained the record for cow chip tossing in Montana. So why was this famous event of tossing fish across the state line not worthy?

Well, in the days before the internet, the story took off and went viral. The Tampa Tribune ran it on the front page of the Sunday paper. The Times-Picayune in New Orleans picked it up, as well as the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. Then CNN picked it up and ran it on cable news.

By May, 25,000 people descended on the Flora-Bama beach, by far a record turnout for the event at that time.

As I recall he ended up paying me about $4,000 for promoting the event. UPI paid me $150 for the story. I moved back to Birmingham briefly and then back to Tuscaloosa for grad school.

Meanwhile, so many people showed up and they made so much money that Joe Gilchrist, the original owner of the bar and package store, bought the property next door and built a parking deck to handle all the cars the next year. They built another restaurant across the street along with a sound recording studio, and the place is so big now you can’t get in the place in the summertime on weekends.

My long and varied journalism career is full of great success stories like this, which you can read about in my memoir Jump On The Bus: Make Democracy Work Again. This story was not included, since it does not involve saving American democracy or the planet with journalism.

But it does demonstrate how news could influence public opinion back then, even to convince a bunch of people to show up for a big crazy beach party bash.

Facebook

This is what was posted on Facebook about Pat. There’s more to the story, but this will have to suffice for today.

“It is with a heavy heart, we let you know that Pat McClellan, owner of Flora-Bama, passed away peacefully in his sleep Wednesday evening.

“Pat came through the Navy Flight Program in 1971 as a NROTC graduate from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Journalism and Advertising. He spent four years aboard the USS Lexington as Public Affairs and Special Services Officer. Once out of the service, from 1976-1984, Pat worked his way up from bartender at Rosie O’Grady’s to General Manager at Seville Quarter. It was there he initiated the 1st Mardi Gras street party and co-chaired the first Pensacola Mardi Gras committee. Joe Gilchrist convinced Pat to become his partner in a quiet little “Honky Tonk” on the Gulf called the Flora-Bama. That was in Oct. of 1984. From there he went on to create the “Polar Bear Dip”, “Inter-State Mullet Toss” and numerous other special events.

“Some people own a business. Pat McClellan built a legend. If you’ve ever thrown a mullet, toasted with a Bushwacker, danced barefoot to a band you didn’t know you’d love, laughed with a stranger who became a friend, or watched the sun disappear over Perdido Key… you’ve experienced a little piece of Pat’s heart.

“He had a gift for turning ordinary days into stories worth telling. He believed the best things in life weren’t polished… they were salty, sandy, a little loud, and shared with good people. Somehow, he made a little roadhouse on the state line feel like home to millions.

“Pat was quick with a joke, had a boisterous laugh, a huge presence, was never short on a story, and somehow always managed to remind us not to take life too seriously… quietly showing us what truly mattered…people.

“As soon as you received your “growth hugs, maintenance hugs, and survival hugs” you were immediate family. The truth is, Flora-Bama was never just the buildings. It never was. It has always been the people, the music, the memories, the laughter, the generosity, and the unmistakable spirit that Pat helped create.

“That spirit can’t be replaced, and thanks to Pat, it can never be taken away. Today, our hearts are heavy. We grieve alongside his family, his countless friends, our employees, musicians, and the millions of guests who became part of this incredible family over the years. The music will play a little differently. The sunsets will feel a little quieter. Somewhere, someone will tell a story that starts with, “Pat once said…” And we’ll all smile through the tears. Thank you, Pat, for proving that the best places in the world aren’t found on a map. They’re built by people who love others well. This world is a better place because of Pat McClellan. We will love you forever. Details on a celebration of life to come later.”

Lasting Friendship

Pat continued to follow me over the years in all my endeavors of publishing online. He even bought an ad in The Southerner magazine online we published from 1998-2001 out of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Later on he was on my email list for the New American Journal back when Doug Jones was running against Roy Moore for Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat in 2017, and when he liked something I wrote, he would periodically send me donations through PayPal.

He was a big, funny, kind-hearted man who I will never forget. For many years when traveling though the area, I could show up at the bar and he would smile real big when he saw me coming, and offer to buy my dinner and drinks. After that Mullet Toss story, my money was no good there as far as he was concerned.

I do sometimes still miss the Gulf Coast and that beach, even as I now make my home in the Sierra Mountains in California.

Those were the days, my friend. We thought they would never end.

Song for the Day

Those Were the Days (song)

“Those Were the Days” is a song composed by Boris Fomin (1900–1948) but credited to Gene Raskin, who wrote a new English-language lyric to Fomin’s Russian romance song “Dorogoi dlinnoyu”, which had lyrics by the poet Konstantin Podrevsky. With Raskin’s lyrics, the song is a reminiscence of youth and romantic idealism, recalling drinking, singing, and dancing in a tavern with a friend, imagining a rosy future that has not been fulfilled.

The Welsh singer Mary Hopkin covered “Those Were the Days” as her debut single in 1968. Produced by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and arranged by Richard Hewson, the song became a number-one hit in the UK and Canada, and reached number two in the US on the Billboard Hot 100 behind the Beatles’ “Hey Jude”.

The song was included on Hopkin’s 1969 debut album, Post Card.