Summer Olympics

• 1 pint Pale Ale on nitro - Olympic Club, Centralia
• 2 bottles Rainier - Olympic Club
• 1 pint IPA - Olympic Club

The Olympic Club in Centralia is a very cool old bar that has been around since the early 1900's. About 10 years ago, the McMenamin brothers took it over and reopened it as a hotel and bar, but the best thing is that they hardly changed it at all. It still has the original tile floor, bathrooms (a man could fall and lose himself in the urinals they're so huge), skylights, bar, backbar, pool room, and cast iron stove (which is great in the winter as it heats the entire bar). It used to be a prime spot for bootlegging during Prohibition and the "secret" tunnels below the bar are proof. The Olympic Club even smells old, not necessarily of cigarette smoke, but of aged leather, worn wood, brick, dirt, and hard alcohol. It's not hard to imagine it being 1940 and setting yourself down on the brass bar stool, lighting a cigarette and downing a shot of whiskey followed by a beer, then hanging out and telling everyone about your day working in the nearby dairy. My grandpa John, (my mom's dad and my namesake) might have actually done this. They lived in Centralia for awhile - Aunt Janice was even born there and my great grandfather is buried there - and grandpa worked at the dairy. Their house is most likely gone now, but I like thinking about what it was like for them when they lived there. I also like thinking about how Susan's grandma lived there and how her parent's live in Chehalis, four miles away. That I've moved all over the United States, and my mom's side of the family retired in California, but that our relatives may have crossed paths a long time ago.