Now THAT Was a Classy Joint

Permit us the periodic wander farther afield than the Caldecott as Lamorinda Patch remembers one of the last true characters, an eccentric, and one heck of a saloon keeper.

Those of us who knew Norman Jay Hobday, aka "Henry Africa," knew him as a feisty but lovable madman with a penchant for bodybuilding, motorcycles, and military history. He looked me in the eye and told me he was in the French Foreign Legion before coming to San Francisco to set up his saloon, a la Rick's Café Américain, and for about thirty seconds I believed him -- he told one heck of a story. About an hour later I caught him telling some other guy he got into the bar business after he was discharged from the Army and a stint in Korea.

Those of us living and working in the city during the 80s and 90s remember it as a nutty time, the city recovering from the assassinations at City Hall, coming to grips with a new drug epidemic spawned by the rising popularity of crack cocaine, and the birth of the "Fern Bar." A large part of that last bit was Norman's doing.

Wearing his traditional overalls and biker's cap, Norman used to say he "borrowed" the idea for a bar with an indoor garden of hanging plants and overstuffed couches, from the gay bars in the Castro -- turning them into seething, 20th Century versions of Victorian parlors on speed, catering to the whimsy of well-heeled Yuppies in search of a member of the opposite gender, and one of Hobday's patented "Lemon Drops."

We talked after the notorious police raid on Lord Jims, virtually around the corner, and he smiled whimsicly at the news and wiped his brow in the age-old "missed me by that much" gesture.

In later years Norman gave up on his endeavor to keep his bodybuilder's bod and moved operations South of Market, decorating his new joint -- Eddie Rickenbacker's -- with his beloved rare motorcycles and some exquisite Tiffany lamps. Norman actually lived at the bar, plopping his now unrestrained girth on a favorite couch and stroking Mr. Higgins, a favored orange cat he said he kept around to poke the Health Department, but who I believe was his one true companion in his later years.

Norman/Henry died last year after a short illness. He was 77. Appraisers brought in to value the trappings of his last bar found a million dollar collection of motorcyles and an array of Tiffany lamps that eclipsed that number. They go up for auction at Christie's in June and are expected to bring at least $2 million.

Norman knew what he had, securing the lamps with a cable he wound from each piece to his backbar -- under the notion that if a crook tried to steal the lamps they'd make a heckuva racket and probably wake up Norman. Maybe even Higgins.

Anyway, cheers, Norman. I'd like to say you were a swell guy but you were far too prickly for that. But you were interesting... and you told a great story.

And you had great taste.