“LET ME BUY YOU A DRINK, whatever you want!” Karin’s demeanor had changed since I picked her up from the Bremerton Inn – a motel turned extended stay, neglected, and overpriced moldy flop house. I was still reeling from the stream of stories she’d already shared in the short time I’d known and grown to adore her. I welcomed more stories after a toast to what she’d created…
Karin called Bremerton Foodline in late March of this year, just as we were launching a Groceries On the Go program in support of homebound seniors with mobility and/or transportation barriers. She became our first client. A home visit revealed holes in the wall, tools necessary to turn on the shower water, mold stains in the ceiling, and a charming German American relieved to be seen and heard. Karin Reutebuch Beals is a founder and one of the original owners of the one-and-only Drift Inn in downtown Bremerton.
Sitting next to her today, I felt as though I was sitting next to a celebrity. As she shared her journey from Greifswald, Germany, near the Polish border to Berlin – where she dug through war rubble to strip and sell various metals for cash – and then on to Salem, Oregon with her first husband, I felt privy to uncover this locket that had been lost to the dark corner of the bar, no one ever cleaned.
Possessing a generous heart, Karin said she used the Drift to care for the community in so many ways. She remembers how collected tips were often donated to various causes. During Christmas, sailor tips were used to purchase gifts for children in low-income housing. One year, a couple of regulars were in an accident on Whidbey Island where the two sailors were hiking along a cliff when one began to fall and the other unsuccessfully tried to catch him. Tragically, the sailor died and the other got trapped on the beach for several days next to his friend’s body. After finally being rescued, the survivor ended up in the Naval hospital where Karin and her cast of attractive bar gals visited on the regular – she was determined to give him “something to live for.”
Karin even flew out both sets of parents of the two sailors, putting them up for a week. When they came to visit the bar, “there wasn’t a dry eye in the place,” she said. Over a barrage of loud hair metal anthems filling the bar today, my new 84-year-old friend shared how she’d once earned the respect of a hard-edged motorcycle club president after demanding a “please” and “thank you” when he first pounded his fist for a beer. Karin’s thick German accent and wry wit refused to take any shit. (There’s an edge a gal can carry after surviving a war and navigating through the aftermath.) That same club later assisted in demolishing the wall that once stood between two narrow businesses she had bought to become one. Upon brief examination, the dividing line is obvious where the wall once stood. Karin lovingly smiles and points to the stand-up tabletops near the pool tables which were crafted by her late second husband, Brian, 18 years her junior.
Her “honey bunny,” she says, was absolutely the love of her life. She recalls how they once shared great wealth in the form of apartment buildings, property, a house on Kitsap Lake, a tackle shop that supported her love for fishing, and the bar. She sold it all to care for Brian through his fight against Lou Gehrig’s disease, selling the Drift first in 1988 (then buying it back from those owners who failed to make payments on it) and selling a second time to the same family who runs it today. But Brian’s death was a more devastating blow than any of the other losses. She repeatedly declares: “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
I take a sip of my gin & tonic to take pause in my notetaking. She continues: “I won my daughter over a game of shuffleboard…”
I nearly sprayed my drink in her face.
“What?!”
Karin couldn’t believe it either when the woman made the offer, she said. Many months later, a very pregnant woman showed up at her door and recorded Karin’s name as her own at the hospital, giving birth to Karin’s daughter – It was 1964. But the details don’t stop there. While caring for a brand-new baby, a new friend turned Karin in, instigating a legal battle which became a wild search for the biological mother who then worked as a lady of the night – which sounds like an unactualized storyline for an incredible film.
Karin’s stories flow like songs chosen from the juke box – out of order but with the same level of nostalgia and longing. She is a human archive of Bremerton dive bar history. She turns 85 on December 3rd. Please join us after 5pm at the Drift Inn to celebrate this local legend. She currently lives in challenging conditions, but we’re working hard to find her another place to live. If anyone has any resources for an accessible apartment or ADU for a sharp-witted gal with a walker (she can pay a reasonable rent), please send them to erinn@bremertonfoodline.org. // ERINN HALE
ERINN HALE is the Program Manager for Bremerton Foodline.
