MOBILE, Ala. (NBC 15) —
Jim Rush has a constant craving… for oysters.
Always has, at least for most of his 99 years.
How does he do it?
“Open them and eat them.”
Does he put anything on them?
“Not if I’m opening my own oysters,” he says, firmly. “I don’t want anything on them.”
But Monday, Jim wasn’t opening his own oysters.
No, the folks at Wintzell’s Oyster House in Mobile, Alabama did the shucking for him… part of a birthday party for Jim’s son, Jimmy Jr., who turned 80 years old this day.
Jim loves oysters, no doubt about it.
And Wintzell’s is very good at serving them. They’ve been doing it since 1938.
But there’s another reason why Jim and his family came here on this particular day to eat oysters.
And that reason is right up there on the wall.
Out of the thousands of little postings of sage wisdom on the walls at Wintzell’s there this one:
“Free oysters to any man 80 years old accompanied by his father.”
They’ve been planning to take advantage of that promise for some time.
“Oh, yes!” says his son, Jimmy Jr. “Years! My brother seen it, we’ve talked about it and come down and looked at it many times to make sure. And we asked about it… is this for real? And today, it’s for real!”
Jim Senior developed his affection for these slick little sliders when he was a growing up and transferred his fancy for the shellfish to his daughter and sons who grew up on Mobile Bay, where the oysters were there for the taking, says his daughter, Dorothy.
“And it wasn’t very deep,” she says. “It was only about eight feet deep. But they would go out with the tongs and tong it and bring them in and we lined up.”
It was a craving Jim took with him into the Navy, where he served in both W.W.II and the Korean conflict… then to his job at the post office, where he worked for 32 years.
And Wintzells became his go-to.
And then his sons saw that sign.
“A lot of the signs in here are novelty. That’s a novelty, kind of, you know? But when it happens it kind of breaks the novelty of it.”
Mike Vickers is the general manager at the original Wintzell’s downtown where that sign’s been hanging for … well, about 88 years.
What is it about oysters?
“I’m beginning to think it’s longevity! Giving people longevity, because everybody that comes in, you know, they’ve been around a long time and remember things. That would be a lot of it, but its also, you know, kinda like that sitting at the bar and talking to the bartender. It’s just the food version, you know, sitting at the oyster bar talking to the oyster shucker.”
But enough talk…
Jim came here to eat… for free, of course.
And at 99, he’s ready to do it all over again, when Carl, son number two, turns 80 a little over two years from now!
“We have literally been talking about this for decades,” says Carl, proudly. “That’s why some many people have come down to be a part of it. Some of my friends were glad it happened today, so they could quit hearing about it!”
