Military Aviators Banding Together To Preserve Historic Fla. Bar

PENSACOLA, Fla. - When Kent Bolin finished his last overseas tour with the Marine Corps in 1996, he went straight from Casablanca, Morocco, to Trader Jon's, stopping only to change planes.

The ramshackle bar, crammed with military memorabilia, has been a beacon for aviators at Pensacola Naval Air Station and other bases ever since Martin "Trader Jon" Weissman opened it in the early 1950s.

"I got in about 11 o'clock at night, caught a cab and came over to see Trader," recalled Bolin, a helicopter pilot. "He hugged me and welcomed me, ordered a pizza for me. I hadn't had American pizza in about eight months."

Three years later, Bolin is helping lead an effort by Trader's customers to raise money and buy the bar so they can keep it going just the way they remember it.

"A military guy is on the road and he's in and out and gone and all over the world so much," said retired Navy Cmdr. Bob Stumpf, a former leader of the Blue Angels precision flying team. "This is one thing you could always count on."

Alas, no longer.

The impish Weissman, 83, who wore mismatched socks and offered a ridiculously huge, but never collected, reward to anyone catching him in a matched pair, suffered a stroke in October 1997.

Partly paralyzed and unable to speak clearly, Weissman can no longer run the bar. His wife, Jackii, 76, tried to keep it going, but it was too much for her. She closed Trader's late last year and put it up for sale.

Bolin, a flight-simulation consultant since retiring as a major, shudders at the thought of Trader's being permanently closed, perhaps torn down to make way for an office building or condominium.

"That's my worst nightmare," Bolin said.

Stumpf, now a Federal Express pilot, is confident, however, that it can be saved by The Trader Jon's Preservation Squadron, a nonprofit corporation that he and Bolin are leading.

"The appraisal's in and it's very reachable for us," he said, estimating the price at $350,000 to $400,000. "We figure what we have now is good for a good solid down payment to make a bid and go from there."

Additional money would have to be raised to repair and refurbish the building. The plan is to contract out management with a requirement the main floor remain as is.

That means the pictures of aviators, astronauts and celebrity customers such as comedian Bob Hope, actor John Wayne and England's Prince Andrew would stay on the brick walls. The wing, rudder, helicopter blade and other aircraft pieces, the crash helmets and flight suits, the countless airplane models and other memorabilia also would remain.

Bolin and Stumpf envision turning the attic into a restaurant-bar that future aviators could decorate with their memorabilia.

"It's historic," Stumpf said. "It's established itself as probably the best-known aviation bar in the world."

The state already has recognized that by placing a historic marker in front of the 1898 building, previously a ship chandlery and shoe-repair shop.