Welcome!
I am Mike Looby Owner/Operator of the "Horse and Cow" franchises. You are now navigating around the new "Horse and Cow" website. I hope to bring more memorabilia and photos to this site.
In 1953, My father, Jimmy "the Godfather" opened a Horse and Cow bar in San Francisco for submariners from Hunter's Point. In 1974, after Hunter's Point closed, he started a Horse and Cow in Vallejo where it lasted for two decades until subs were transferred as part of the Cold War cutback. I had already opened the San Diego version in 1990 at 2734 Lytton St. in the abandoned space of a notorious and dank sailor bar, just a mile from the San Diego sub base. The San Diego bar closed down in 2000 and I opened a bar in Bremerton, Washington. In 2007 I opened another version in Guam.
The Horse and Cow has a mythological pedigree. Neptune, god of the sea, is often portrayed as accompanied by a small horse and a small cow (or bull). In World Wars I and II, merchant sailors, terrified of being sunk by submarines, tattooed a horse on one ankle, a cow on the other, in hopes of ensuring safe passage.
Hello from Jimmy!
Jimmy "the Godfather" wants everyone to know he is alive and well. He is living in Bremerton, Washington, and would like to here from you. He is currently in the process of writing his memoirs and would like to include stories of the COW. If you have any pictures, memorabilia, or personal experiences you would like to share, or you would like to just say Hello, please contact him at Jimmy@Horseandcow or you can contact Mike, and he will pass on the message.
In the Beginning
In the beginning was the word, and the word was God and all else was darkness and void and without form. So God created the heavens and the earth. He created the sun and the moon and the stars, so that their light might pierce the darkness. And the earth, God divided between the land and the sea, and these He filled with many assorted creatures.
And from the slime, in a land called Lympstone, God made dark, salty creatures that inhabited the seashore. He called them Marines, He dressed them accordingly, in bright colors so that their betters may more easily find them in the holes and burrows that they'd scoured out of the ground.
And God said, "Whilst at their appointed labors they will devour worms, maggots, C and K rations and all creatures that creep or crawl". The flighty creatures of the air, He called Airdales, and these He clothed in uniforms which were ruffled, perfumed, and pretty. He gave them great floating cities with flat roofs in which to live, where they gathered and formed huge multitudes. They carried out heathen rites and ceremonies by day and by night upon the roof amidst thunderous noise. They were given God's blue sky and their existence was on the backs of others.
And the surface creatures of the sea, God called Skimmers, who Supported the Airdales and with a twinkle in His eye and a sense of humor only He could have, He gave them all gedunks, polluted with much stickywater, to drink. God gave them big grey "targets" to go to sea in. He gave them many splendid uniforms to wear. And He gave them all the world's exotic and wonderful places to visit. He gave them pen and paper so that they could write home every week, and He gave them ropeyarn Sunday at sea and a laundry so they could clean and polish their splendid uniforms. (When you are God it is very easy to get carried away with your own great and wondrous benevolence) .
And on the seventh day, as you know, God rested from his labors. And on the eighth day at 0755, just before colors, God looked down upon the earth and He was not a happy man. God knew He had not quite achieved perfection, so He thought about his labors, and in His infinite wisdom, He created a divine creature, His masterpiece, and this He called a Submariner. A child of heaven.
And these Submariners, whom God created in His own image, and to whom He gave his most cherished gift, great intelligence, were to be of the deep, and to them He gave more of his greatest gifts. He gave them black steel messengers of death called the "Smoke Boat" class in which to roam the depths of his oceans, and He gave them His arrows and slingshots, the Mark 14 torpedo of burnished brass and black, and the Mark 37 of green, to wage war against the forces of Satan and all evil.
He heaped great knowledge and understanding upon them, in order that they may more easily win their greatest challenge, to pass their Qualification Test and be skilled in the great works God had charged them with.
The finest of these men, God called "Diesel Boat Submariners" for they made all happen beyond the understanding of other men. He gave His Submariners hotels in which to live when they were exhausted and weary from doing God’s will. He gave them fortitude to consume vast quantities of beer and booze, to sustain them in their arduous tasks, performed in His name.
He gave them great food, submarine pay and occasionally, subsistence so that they might entertain the Ladies of the "Starlight", "White Hat", and the "Horse and Cow" on Saturday nights and impress the heck out of the creatures He called "Skimmers” and "Jar Heads".
And at the end of the eighth day, God again looked down upon the earth and saw all was good in His realm. But God was not happy because, in the course of His mighty labors He had forgotten one thing. He had not kept a pair of "Dolphins" for Himself.
But He thought about it and considered it and finally He consoled himself, in the certain knowledge that - - -
"Not Just Anybody Can Be a Submariner!"
"USS WAHOO", War Patrol Report
Another war patrol report for your reading. ENJOY!
The Boomer Life
"I'd rather have a sister in a whore house than a brother on a Boomer. - Shit House Poet
Fast Attack
USS Asheville (SSN-758)