In time

Having recently turned 21, she had her first legal drink at Max’s Tavern on East 13th Avenue in early March of 1949.

So it might seem a little odd that Arlene Grorud returned to the same bar 63 years later on Wednesday to celebrate her 21st birthday.

But this is the sort of thing that happens when you’re a “leap day” baby.

“I’m finally legal,” Grorud joked while enjoying a pint glass of Bud Light at the long, thin box of a bar just west of the University of Oregon campus.

Born Arlene Michels on Feb. 29, 1928, Grorud actually turned 84 on Wednesday. But when your actual date of birth only rolls around once every four years, well, you do the math.

“She’s talked about it for years,” Grorud’s daughter, Laurie Miller of The Dalles, said of her mother wanting to one day return to Max’s. “We thought, ‘What better day than her 21st birthday?’”

All four of Grorud’s children were there for the birthday bash, including Jan Grorud of Lake Oswego, George Grorud of Phoenix, Ariz., and Chris Grorud of Portland, along with one of Arlene Grorud’s four grandchildren, Jamie Raskauskas of Portland, and several family friends.

“I may have had my first legal drink here, too,” said George Grorud, a 1977 graduate of the UO who lived in an apartment behind the tavern, which first opened as Robinson’s Cafe in 1932.

The bar for years was owned by Max Robinson and his wife, Juanita, probably until the 1960s, said Kim Fairbairn, who along with her husband, Ward Fairbairn, have owned the bar since 1992.

Arlene Grorud grew up in the small town of Mount Angel, northeast of Salem, known for its German heritage and annual Oktoberfest celebration.

Raised during the Great Depression, her family did not have a lot of money when she was a little girl. For her birthday, celebrated on Feb. 28 all but that one special day every four years, she usually received a home-sewn dress from her mother and a new pair of slippers from her grandmother.

And every Feb. 29, until she was 16, a birthday card arrived in the mail from the German doctor who delivered her.

“I guess he thought a little girl who only had a birthday every four years deserved something special,” Grorud said.

She attended the UO for a year before enrolling in the Sacred Heart General Hospital School of Nursing.

Shortly after turning 21 in 1949, a date took her to Max’s, where she had a glass of “plain, cheap beer.”

But that was the last time she’d been there, until Wednesday.

“The bar was not this long (back then),” recalled Grorud, who does not look her age.

“I know,” Kim Fairbairn said. “She’s totally a ‘Max’s Girl.’”

A what?

“Max’s doesn’t apply to wimpy girls, let’s put in that way,” Fairbairn explained. “If you’re a woman at Max’s, you have to be able to hold a conversation with a wide variety of people.”

Arlene Grorud can certainly hold her own. She still plays a mean game of golf and is waiting for that third hole-in-one any day now. She still lives in the Salem home she shared with her late husband, Dr. Palmer Grorud, the man she met while still in nursing school in Eugene. He died in 1988.

And she still keeps the most meticulous garden on her street, daughter Miller said. Her dahlias look like they are on “botanical steroids,” Miller said.

After marrying in the early 1950s, the Groruds settled in Springfield, where Palmer started a general medical practice. All four children were born at Sacred Heart. They moved to The Dalles in 1968, and then to Salem in the late ’70s.

But Arlene Grorud always thought about returning to that fun little bar she remembered from so many years ago.

And when she did, she got not one, but two, birthday songs.

After an ear-piercing siren went off, Kim Fairbairn had an announcement to make.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses,” she said. “We have a special lady with us tonight celebrating her 21st birthday.”

Everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and gave her a big applause as Fairbairn presented her with a navy blue Max’s Tavern T-shirt before cranking the Beatle’s “Birthday” song on the sound system.

“You say it’s your birthday! It’s my birthday, too, yeah!”

A little bit later, a man called Lonesome Randall took the stage by the front door and played “Happy Birthday” all over again as everyone joined in.

“It’s a first,” Fairbairn said, of an 84-year-old celebrating her 21st birthday at the bar. “They’re a very nice family. And it makes owning this bar kind of special. Real heart and soul.”