This life ring was hanging in the window of Brennan’s long before I bought the restaurant. I’ve always been drawn to it and no one seemed to know where it came from until one day, a man came into the restaurant and told me he had given it to Tim Brennan years ago.
I was so excited to finally meet the life ring’s owner so I told him to sit right down while I got a pen and paper. I told him that I was very curious about his particular ring. He informed me that it is pronounced Zin (as in wine) and Loy (as in soy.) He was on a Swift Boat in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, which was a very dangerous duty. He went on to explain that Xin Loi means “Tough S**t” in Vietnamese. They painted this saying on the sides of their Swift boat and patrolled up and down the rivers of Vietnam (I have found a slightly different translation, but I didn’t care because I love his translation too much.)
He promised himself that if he made it home, he would buy a boat and name it the Xin Loi and that is exactly what he did. When he sold his boat, he gave Tim the life ring and he gave me one of my favorite stories!
