Andy Mousalimas died two weeks ago, and everybody’s still scratching their heads trying to figure out how he managed to cram so much living into only 95 years.
He did it all: husband, father, family patriarch, tavern owner, fantasy football and trivia contest pioneer and, oh yes, a bona fide war hero who had a hefty price put on his head by none other than Adolf Hitler.
And on a minor note, he was also responsible for my career. Andy was the owner of the King’s X bar in North Oakland, and he started hosting fantasy football and trivia tournaments long before anybody else had even heard of them. It wasn’t long before King’s X became Trivia Contest Central for the entire East Bay, and every year a dream team of King’s X all-stars crossed the Bay and crushed the competition in the annual Reno Barsocchini Trivia Bowl, which was held at Reno’s Bar in North Beach. (Here’s a bit of trivia for you: Reno Barsocchini was a longtime San Francisco icon whose main claim to fame was that he was Joe DiMaggio’s best man when he married Marilyn Monroe.)
The King’s X team’s success was maddening for the other teams, especially at KCBS, the all-news radio station, where the news director, Ted Feurey (pronounced “Ted Fury” — awesome radio name, right?) was tearing his hair out in frustration.
A friend of mine named Diane Keaton (no, not the actress, whose real name isn’t Keaton, anyway; it’s Hall, as in Annie, another bit of trivia for you) was working as a desk assistant in the newsroom, and she piped up, “Hey, I know a guy who knows a lot of crap!”
That was me. At the time, I was studying for the bar exam and hating every second of it. I never wanted to be a lawyer; I just didn’t know how to say “no” to my father. So when Feurey offered me a job — he had to in order to get me on the team — I jumped at it, and my legal career was over before it began. And I’ve been grateful to Andy ever since.
Flash-forward 15 years to 1991. I was writing a daily column for the Oakland Tribune, and one of my colleagues, entertainment columnist Perry Phillips, suddenly died. I had heard rumors that Perry was a secret agent for the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, during World War II, so I called the CIA to check it out.
“He sure was,” said the agent I spoke with. “He was part of a commando unit called Operation Noah’s Ark that operated behind enemy lines in occupied Greece and Yugoslavia. But there’s a guy in your neck of the woods named Andy Mousalimas who served with Mr. Phillips, and he can tell you all about it. I hope to meet him some day. He’s a very brave man.”
So I called Andy and said, “Andy, you’ve been holding out on me!”
“Well,” he said, “I hate to brag.”
But he had a lot to brag about if he had wanted to: a Bronze Star, European Campaign Ribbon with four Battle Stars, Asia Campaign Ribbon with three Battle Stars, British Paratroop Ribbon, Chinese Paratroop Ribbon, the Presidential Unit Citation, a Congressional Gold Medal and, perhaps the greatest honor of all, Fuhrer Order No. 003830, which read, “From now on, all enemies on so-called commando missions are to be slaughtered to the last man. Signed, Adolf Hitler.”
Andy outlived Hitler by 75 years, and he did an awful lot of good with that time. Efharistó, Andy. That’s Greek for “thank you.”
P.S. — Feurey got his money’s worth when he hired me so I could be on the KCBS trivia team. We beat the King’s X team that year in a photo finish that came down to the final question: “According to a recent poll, who is the most popular athlete in America?”
The answer: O.J. Simpson.
Martin Snapp can be reached at catman442@comcast.net.