photo/Jessie Banhazl
Frank Kimball
Age: 86
Hometown: Peaks Island, Maine
Bar of Choice: Blyth & Burrows
Drink of Choice: Bacardi and Diet
When Frank Kimball goes “honky-tonkin’,’” this gregarious octogenarian hits watering holes in Portland’s Monument Square and Old Port, especially those owned by his ol’ pal Josh Miranda (Blyth & Burrows, Papi, Via Vecchia and Henry’s Public House), which are known for their stunning interiors and thoughtful food and cocktails.
“Frank is probably one of our longest-standing and most loyal regulars,” said Anna Day, a bartender at Blyth. “Never a dull moment with Frank. We even have his drink order programmed into our computer as ‘Frank Drank,’ since he’s the only one who ever orders it.”
We sat down with Frank at Blyth one afternoon while he sipped his usual Bacardi and Diet Coke and told us about his life.
When did you start coming to Blyth & Burrows?
I’ve watched the Old Port develop and I’ve seen a few places go away — that bothered me. I used to go to Solo Italiano [on Commercial Street] when Caleb and Chopper were both bartenders down there. When they started working here at Blyth and Burrows, I started coming in, so I’ve been coming here since they opened. Josh, the owner, is an old drinking buddy of mine. I used to see him up at the old Legion on Atlantic Street. It’s closed now, but I’ve known him for twenty-five years. He started buying places, so I frequent them! [The bartenders] are my social life; they’re why I keep coming back.
Where are you from?
I grew up on Peaks Island. I was a letter carrier there for thirty-one years. I was a lobbyist for eight years for the letter carriers’ union. It was fun, but I learned to dislike a lot of people who work in politics, especially in the southern states. Do you know who Linda Tripp was*? I met her and nobody in her department liked her at all. They said she was a witch, and it turned out she was! Ha-ha!
In 1992, when I was fifty-five, I retired from the post office. The day I turned fifty-five, that swish they heard was me going out the door. I loved being a letter carrier but I was tired of working. I’m known all the way from Kittery to Caribou and everywhere in between, because I had to visit all the post offices when I was state president of the letter carriers. Eight years ago, my oldest son took a job as a letter carrier down in Biddeford. He can keep it going.
A lot of people associate rum with the Navy. Is that how you landed on Bacardi and Diet as your drink of choice?
I was a Naval Reserve for thirty-two years. Of course, with the Navy I was always on ships. We went up and down the East Coast from Key West all the way to Halifax and back to the Caribbean. I was only on destroyers and minesweepers and they could go into small places — like, if you’re on a big ship, you could only go into major ports, but we went everywhere. I was in the first invasion of Lebanon way back in 1956. I was active during the Berlin Missile Crisis and in Vietnam. I took my first drink when I was twenty-six years old in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and it happened to be Bacardi. I stuck with it.
We heard you were also an announcer on the drag racing circuit.
I was the voice of “Sunday! New England Dragway.” I love drag racing. I got into drag racing because I was a hot-rodder when I was in high school. I had a ’56 Ford and I always loved cars. I learned to drive a 1931 Model A Ford two-door down on Peaks Island when I was thirteen years old. If I could drive that Model A, I could drive anything.
Tell us about your weekly bar crawl.
For the past twenty-five years I’ve been making a regular round down here. On my route I hit up Henry’s, Dewey’s, King’s Head, DiMillo’s, J’s Oyster, Tomasso’s, and everywhere in between. I go out two or three times a week, but once it gets warmer it’ll be four. I don’t normally come out on weekends. There’s two nights I don’t go out — New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day. There’s too many amateurs and the bars are too busy. I go about a mile and a half to two miles just walking around here, because I go everywhere. I don’t hit them all every time I come out. Usually I do about four or five places. I try to have one drink an hour, but I occasionally violate that rule. I didn’t live to be eighty-six by being stupid!
Being a widower, I’ve got more time than I know what to do with, and I have three pensions. The reason I come down here is the people that work here. I got rid of my car five years ago because of the buses. When I’m going out honky-tonkin’ — some people call it a “pub crawl,” I call it honky-tonkin’ — I get off the bus and stop first at Shay’s [in Monument Square], and they tease me when I leave there to head to the Old Port. They say, “It’s all downhill from here!”
*In fact, Jessie’s band, Lean Meats, released a single, “Linda,” this February about that very person.
Know an interesting bar regular? Recommend them to us by e-mailing theregularsmaine@gmail.com.
