Olympia Beer Lore

My generation remembers it:  In the 1960s, Olympia Beer printed a production mark on the back of the labels on their stubbies comprised of one or two or three dots, or four.  If you could get somebody to sign the label, and it turned out to be a four dot label, then the signature was a promise to “put out.” 

This came to mind last weekend, when the Siuslaw High School class of ’65 had its “65^th Birthday and Medicare Sign-up Party.” Our guest of honor was our American History teacher, David Rankin, who is now 75 years old. We were his first class ever. He told us about being recruited to go to work at Florence.

The Superintendent of Schools was interviewing recent college graduates, because our class, the first huge group of post- WW II “war babies” had arrived at high school age, and he needed to hire 18 new teachers to accommodate us. The Superintendent, Dick Schollenberger, called up Rankin and asked if he’d like to interview for a job. He said “Yes,” and “How about three o’clock?” 

Mr. Schollenberger came to Rankin’s apartment in the “slum” of student housing, the Amazon apartments, and brought half a case of Olympia beer. The men talked over the job and each had a couple of beers. And when the bottles were empty, automatically they peeled off the labels to look for dots.