Words

“Thirstin” County Bar Run, ‘98 - A Visit to Every Pub/Tavern in Thurston County

Littlerock, Thurston County, Washington State, September, 1998 – Here he was, standing right in front of us; purportedly the first man in history to climb Mt. Everest without the use of oxygen tanks. But middle school rumors are often unfounded, and truths embellished. I know for a fact he wasn’t the first to climb Everest without oxygen. That distinction belongs to Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler. In fact, I’m sure he didn’t even peak without oxygen. His feat was simply – or very difficultly – reaching the summit of Everest. There must have been some truth to the rumor, though. His hands still showed the visible marks of frostbite’s evil chill. During middle school his missing fingertips and nails were badges of honor, perhaps aiding to the rumors that he was the owner of the heroic first. But now his stubby fingers could only grip crisply around a half-empty glass of beer as he slouched over a smoky bar in rural Thurston County. Wrinkled with time, his face showed much more wear than the previous seven years should have allowed. His bright red shock of hair was streaked with gray.

What happened to the guy who used to knock me over and insult me during middle school football practice? It seemed time and substance abuse had finally taken care of that rivalry. Squinting at us, he must have recognized my friend Steve, as we walked with hesitation from one side of the bar to the other to say hello and reintroduce ourselves. But so many crops of students had come and gone since my time in his physical education class, and so many beers had been consumed, that upon noticing me standing next to Steve he just stared back blankly. No recollection of me whatsoever existed in his mind. He did not recall all the times I finished first in sprints or the time he berated me in front of the whole football team and permanently benched me because I fumbled during a game. Or the C’s he gave me in gym class after our falling out. He looked rundown and utterly bust. He may have conquered the highest of mountains, but his mounting list of problems seemed to have ultimately conquered him.

We didn’t realize at the time that this poor, sad middle school gym teacher drinking himself to death in rural Washington State should have taught us a stark lesson about the cultures of alcohol and addiction. But besides being shocked by his shabby presence, no deeper message ultimately reached us. The dangers of bar life and substance abuse were about as far out of our minds as they could have been at that moment. Steve and I dwelled on the opposite end of the spectrum – where alcohol abuse and bar life were illegal and rebellious and, to us, about as sophisticated and glamorized as any other scene out there. At 19 and 20 years old, there was nothing more exciting that could be happening to us at this moment than to be drinking pints of Raineer Beer in Littlerock Tavern with our old PE teacher. It was worthy of another round of uncontrollable laughter. This kind of laughter had been commonplace throughout the last three weeks or so.

Nearing the end of the summer between college semesters, most of our friends were already in the process of returning to school or actively involved in fulltime work. We’d had jobs ourselves, but the summer employment always dried up at the end of August, so our hot days of teaching soccer camps and landscaping were finished. On another clear and calm afternoon, Steve and I basked on the deck of my parents’ home overlooking the bay. We lazily contemplated how to spend our remaining three weeks until our universities started up again in late September. After much discussion we realized that, compared to our less fortunate friends, we had three important things going for us: copious amounts of free time, hard-earned money saved up from long hours in the summer sun, and, most importantly, fake IDs.

Time and money, we reasoned, allowed anyone to do anything they wanted. These two resources are probably the two most wished-for and sought after entities in the free world. We had them so the world was our oyster. After this discussion about we could spend our time and money we soon realized we also had the means to do what nobody our age could legally do, regardless of time and money: go underage drinking at the bars. Although Steve had less than six months to go until he would come of age, and I had been using my fake ID at certain stores since I was 17, the idea of wasting away our time in bars wasted was no less novel. It was decided; we would spend the next three weeks hammered at the local bars, trying out our luck with fake IDs, frosty brews and females.

But how could we make this game a little more exciting? Anybody can sit on a bar stool all day and depressingly sip beers. Being the adventurous risk-takers we knew we were, something more beckoned. Something more exploratory and fulfilling. Something that, when we finished, we could say we accomplished a feat beyond merely being smashed for three weeks straight. We wanted to be smashed for three weeks straight for a reason. And then, in the process of naming local bars that we had already been to, it came to us. There had to be tons of bars in the city of Olympia. And tons more in Lacey and Tumwater. And even more in the rural parts of the county. We thought: Let’s not just go to some bars in Thurston County. Let’s go to ALL the bars in Thurston County. With smirks on our faces which would last us most of the rest of the three weeks, we shook hands and I pranced off to grab a yellow pages and a county map.

Throughout high school and into college, my friends and I just couldn’t seem to have enough fun times with booze. Our gleeful moments of beer drinking and goofy, giggly behavior around foreign substances should have, by all logic, worn off by this point; acquiring alcohol and finding places to consume it hadn’t been a difficult endeavor for years by then. But there was something about breaking the law and going against everything we had ever been taught, while developing a serotonin-inducing, inhibition-killing buzz, that made everything about alcohol, from purchasing it to puking it back up, an activity that never got old. Time and time again we would make beer runs, carrying cases of ice beer or malt liquor out of our favorite convenience store’s freezers. But it wasn’t always so easy.

There was a time, around age sixteen or so, when none of our buddies even had brothers old enough to purchase alcohol for them. I don’t remember what we did for fun during this age, but I imagine that since we were able to drive there was a fair bit of loitering in parking lots during our nights away from home. During one such session our entire futures with alcohol were changed by an unsuspecting homeless man. He came up to our car and asked if he could have a ride to the next town over. Before we could even answer he told us he would go in and buy some beer for us if we would take him. The thought had not even crossed our mind, but now that he mentioned it...

One town over and five minutes later we sat in the parking lot of a local supermarket. He asked us what type of beer we wanted. As inexperienced as we were we must have looked silly without a proper response. But fortunately this bum was a man of patience, virtue, wisdom, coaching, and alcoholism. He said he would take care of it for us; we only needed 99 cents. He returned with several bottles of intensely strong Bull Ice (7.7%) malt liquor. He then lectured us for several minutes about the art of getting bombed. The simple equation, he pointed out, was to buy the strongest beer (alcohol percentage per volume) for the cheapest price (volume per cost ). By multiplying the two fractions you get the highest percentage of alcohol per unit of cost (alcohol per dollar). The next day I didn’t remember the math but I still remember how far that dollar had gotten me the previous night.

Once we became conscious of the advantages of drinking over loitering – and the advantages of drinking over just about everything else – we soon realized that we were going to need new, more dependable method of obtaining alcohol. We tried stealing from the local brewery and the store and people at parties but the drip was too inconsistent, risky and constantly let us down. Friends’ older brothers and bums were not always around so we need our own ideas. Rumors spread in our circles about those who had taken adventures up to Seattle to get fake state IDs. We decided to get some of our own. These ID cards were not good enough to get anybody into a bar or even to buy at most stores. But there were several foreign-owned convenience stores around that would accept them, as would the rednecks on the night shifts at the gas stations across town. From then on, as far as we knew, we were the biggest party suppliers (and partiers) in the school. It wasn’t until several years later that Steve and I had brothers who were old enough to supply us with reasonable, valid fake IDs: their own driver’s licenses. They would give us theirs and then go into the DMV saying theirs had been stolen and get a new one. In our circle of friends it was an unwritten duty of any older brother who was of age to surrender his ID for his younger bro.
thurston county

Back on my parent’s deck, in the planning stages still, Steve and I look over the map of “Thirston” County, wondering just how fresh the first ice cold draft will taste going down after spending so much time in the hot sun. I tear out the page in the yellow pages which names every bar, tavern and pub in the county. There are about 40 total bars listed, but surely we have a few unlisted surprises in store for us. It seems a daunting task to spend time at all forty so we stipulate that there will be only two requirements to check off at each bar. First, we will each drink at least one glass, pint, schooner, draft, bottle or can of beer at each bar, tavern, pub or club. Second, we will collect something from each bar to prove that we did indeed make it there.

In a world before GPS, GIS and Mapquest, mapping out and finding these bars is a daunting task. If we were to visit each one individually it would be relatively easy, but we have only limited time to complete the tour. We must visit multiple bars on each occasion in order to maximize our time. Five runs of eight bars each would be ideal. Therefore, on a fold-up map of Thurston County, we plot out the whereabouts of each and every bar in the county by using their address listed in the yellow pages. We notice certain patterns in their layout which lend impetus to a logical progression of “bar hopping.” For instance, we see that one single road passes from the eastern part of the county’s urban area clear through the western, urbanized section of the county. This one road has at least ten bars along its 15-mile-long stretch and represents an almost pre-planned route. The major city, Olympia, also has a concentrated area of about eight bars in its downtown. We decide that would be a sound day’s worth of drinking. There is also logical route we can utilize to hit most of the rural areas of the county, which lie to the south. Due to long distances and the amount of bars on the map, we conclude that this “Southern Run,” which passes through one-tavern cities such as Littlerock, Rochester, Maytown, Bucoda, Tenino, Ranier, and Yelm, will be our longest and most drunken day (see map). We must prepare.

We begin our first run on the simplest part of the circuit: the “Downtown Run” in downtown Olympia. Here, we can actually walk between bars. The set of seven drinkeries seem to fly by due to their proximity to each other and we grab a book of matches at each smoky bar as proof of our exploits. At several of them the one-beer minimum is well exceeded. At the last bar of the night, Hannahs, we meet a pair of cute blond twins from the Midwest who are traveling the country together, funding themselves by playing acoustic music. After their show, they need a place to stay for the night. As both Steve and I live with our parents it is probably not advisable to invite them back to any of their houses. But we do anyway. They decline, however, because they are supposed to meet some other friends later that night. Fine, because Steve and I are finished with our business. We must not get distracted. We have several long days of drinking ahead of us.

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A couple days later we begin our “Urban Run,” which travels through the north part of the county, from the aptly-named Nisqually Tavern, located in the Nisqually Delta, through rundown Lacey, parts of Olympia, pieces of hickey Tumwater, and ends on Puget Sound’s Mud Bay at aptly-named Mud Bay Tavern. We are waiting outside the doors of Nisqually Tavern at noon on a Sunday as they open for business. We rush inside to slam a beer so we can get on the road for the next stop. We are gone even before the local motorcycle club has dismounted their silver steeds and entered for drink. This run is made easy due to the fact that we don’t even have a turn to make the entire day – just one long road to slowly follow. A fairly eventless day comes and goes as we hit up the Viking Tavern, the Log Cabin Tavern, DJ Murphy’s, Whisker’s, and many, many more. One highlight is a bar whose host informs us that they have a weekly dart tournament. But more importantly, they open at 6am - the exact time the Washington State Liquor Control Board allows bars legally begin selling alcohol again - so that they can serve beer and eggs to the diehards for breakfast. With $1.25 cans of Schmidt’s Ice only sweetening the deal, Steve and I vow to return to enjoy pints and eggs in the future. We do.

Our final major run, the “Southern Run,” starts off early on a fabulous, Northwestern Indian Summer day. At first, for the reason of trying to avoid drunken driving, we sought to take public transportation. But this endeavor presented myriad difficulty – the most important consideration being that very few of these rural areas are accessed by any bus line. No worries, we have a car. We breeze through several small towns but are forced to take detours of up to 15 miles between each one due to their distance from each other. In several towns we discover that there are more than bar. Worse, in a few tiny municipalities, some of which are so small they don’t even have traffic lights, we come across unlisted establishments. By rule we must stop and stay for a beer. By the time we come through Maytown, Rochester, Littlerock, where I saw my old football coach and PE teacher, and Tenino, we are pretty trashed. And we still have far to go. Out on rural route 507 we spot a hitchhiker who is ten miles from any settlement. In our pity we pick him up and drop him off in the next town.

Five more bars and four more towns later – Tenino, Rainer, Yelm and McKenna – we realize we are not even in “Thirston” County anymore – we have crossed into Pierce County and are on our way to Tacoma. Even more distressing is that we have committed to eat dinner at Steve’s parents’ house. But we feel much too intoxicated, are much too far away and are laughing much too hard. Nevertheless, we decide to head back. As we turn around in a tiny hamlet called Roy, we happen to notice the insignificant Roy Tavern. Oh Shit! Even though we are outside the county we have no choice...obviously. One beer at the Roy Tavern, coming right up. Ten or so schooners deep we hustle, in control of course, back to his parents’ house where there are barbecue, smiles and soft drinks waiting. We attempt to converse with his parents. Although we try our best not to blow our cover we are shocked they don’t sense our drunken amusement. All the while Steve and I sip on our soft drinks, attempting not to look at each other across the table with our heavy eyes and beer on our breath, trying to control our giggles and hiccups.

Over the course of the final week, we pick up beers and books of matches from the remaining straggler bars which, for reasons of geographical placement, were not on any of the other barhopping runs. We likely miss a few and pick up a few that are unlisted in the yellow pages or located outside of the county but nobody we know can name a bar we did not go to. The total finalizes at somewhere around 40. The end of summer passes and our fantastic, adventure-challenge story falls by the wayside as we head back for a busy year at school. We remain close friends but the tale is hardly ever recounted. We are the only witnesses and probably some of the only ones who can appreciate such a self-indulgent and seemingly meaningless escapade. Time passes.

Many years down the road: I come across the bag of matchbooks we obtained from the many bars and the memories flow back fresh like so many pints of frosty Rainer. I ponder: was this time just silly adolescence or is there a deeper, more meaningful experience to be gained from our drunken exploits? In our most persuadable phase of life, were we influenced in some way mentally, emotionally or physically by this series of events? I try to look deeper. At the time, surely the genius of our plan encompassed nothing more than the breaking of societal laws – committing acts of rebellious fun for the sake of nothing more than rebellious fun. But besides faded memories, what has the passing of time, under the unveiled cloak of wisdom, elucidated to us?

All this I contemplate several decades down the road of life on a rainy and chilly night in rural Thurston County. I look into my dark and haggard eyes in my rundown car’s rearview mirror and notice the steadily lengthening creases in my face and my mop of scraggly, ever-graying hair. Lost in the mirror, I am suddenly swerving back and forth across the road. I regain my focus. On my way to the local tavern, blindingly drunk, I clutch the steering wheel with one of my wrinkled hands, while my other rickety paw rises to my mouth to pour the final few ounces of vodka into my mouth before I arrive. I walk into the Littlerock Tavern.