WRITTEN BY PAUL DORPAT

COURTESY OF HANK REVERMAN

Hank Reverman, center above and right below, was the original owner of the Blue Moon Tavern in the University District. He returned to take his place behind the bar and help celebrate the bar's 70th anniversary. The historical photo was lifted from "Forever Blue Moon," Walt Crowley's history of Seattle's most famous tavern. This zesty little book has been reprinted for the anniversary.

	PAUL DORPAT

The older view dates from a year or two after the 21-year-old Reverman put the repeal of prohibition and the University of Washington's "one-mile sobriety rule" together and converted a dirt-floor garage at 712 N.E. 45th St. into the closest legal bar to the campus. Almost instantly, a "cash cow" jumped over this moon. On a typical Saturday, the Blue Moon would empty 25 barrels of beer. Since blue laws then kept bars dark on Sunday, students who were either old enough to drink or could mature instantly with the help of borrowed identification often carried beer home for the weekend.

Once lubricated, Reverman's typical clientele of sportsmen and fraternity brothers could get ornery, so the young owner hired local boxers such as Freddy Steele and "Doc" Snell to tend bar. However, neither they nor the $10 a week he paid the police (on their request) could protect him completely from the liquor agents. Still, Hank Reverman was closed down only once, and that for serving an underage coed who gained entry with false ID. This he soon surveyed was a blessing, for it allowed him to wash and paint the floor.

Hank Reverman sold his Blue Moon in 1940 to become a pilot. During World War II he flew C-47s over the hump between India and China and earned three bronze stars doing it. Soon after the war, Reverman opened the Lake Union Flying Service on Westlake Avenue. He still flies.