Some twenty years ago, back when I was near the end of my bad old drinking days, I found myself in Kelly’s Olympian, a venerable Portland bar I equated with being the last stop on the road to total oblivion. Standing at the bar (there were no stools but only a rail in those days), I grimaced beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, admitting amid a swirl of cigarette smoke that I had touched bottom and was in a position similar to a raccoon considering the nighttime crossing of a wide boulevard. Fortunately I made it across, though on an infrequent...