Oregon Tavern Age: Hemorrhoid Treatment

NSP Meditations, Oregon Tavern Age

An OTA regular limped into my local OTA joint. His body was wrecked after three decades of logging.

I was sitting at my usual table writing my usual useless love letter.

The female OTA bartender came out from behind the bar carrying a cushion and handed it to the OTA man. I stopped writing and eavesdropped. The cushion was relief from a case of hemorrhoids. A white Russian with a Coors Light chaser also eased the pain.

Hemorrhoid Man is a master profane storyteller if gets wound up.

He was wound up today and I listened to him deliver a monologue to another OTA man.

I was so stoned on gummies the last time in here I couldn’t walk.

I shot a turkey through the passenger window of my truck. I saw the damn thing in the road, drove over, powered down the window, grabbed the shotgun, and blasted the son-of-a-bitch in the face. Took him home and cooked him up for supper.

I love eating quail. I saw an old guy in Italy gut one with a knife, rip out all the meat, and fry it up in olive oil. Fucking delicious.

My buddy’s terminally ill so I told him to walk five miles on the beach every morning, then fish and drink, until one day he died.

I’ve got to get a new fucking dog—a bird dog. Not a fucking Chihuahua.

He kept on riffing but I went back to the useless love letter. As I was writing, I wondered if I am the only writer in America who writes about taverns and bars like I do. I mean is there someone writing about Montana Tavern Life or Michigan Tavern Life, and publishing them like I have for two decades? There has to be.

Woodsmoke and Wine

NSP Meditations, Poetry

Drunk, she leaned backward

against the bar of the Crow’s Nest,

ready to topple over.

Behind her,

a dusty bottle of Drambuie

in on the shelf,

last opened 35 years ago,

a final snifter

for the defrocked priest,

who gulped down the honey elixir,

walked to the Rogue River Bridge,

jumped off.

Crabs carried out justice.

A year later,

resurrected as crab Louie.

Paunchy tradesmen surrounded her.

She wore attire suited

for chopping firewood.

Her husband,

the local Elvis impersonator,

wasn’t around,

back home,

hospice,

cirrhosis.

I walked in after driving 327 miles

and delivering a eulogy

for a man who worshiped ospreys.

She saw me and lit up.

I saw her.

To quote

“Good Vibrations,”

I don’t know where / but she sends me there

She announced me as a writer.

The tradesmen didn’t give a shit,

floated away to cheap lagers,

stories about salmon

and burn piles.

I hadn’t seen her in several years.

We caught up.

She asked me where I was staying.

A motel in town.

I wanted to ask her to follow me,

or better yet, I’d drive.

Right now.

I didn’t.

I’ll never forget the time

she sat down at my table

in the Sea Star,

grasped my arms,

crushing the corduroy coat,

said she loved

my book about

Oregon Coast dive bars.

She was in it.

She didn’t even read books,

but I’d left a copy

in the Sea Star

and she’d read it

sitting at the bar

drinking pint glasses

of swill Chardonnay.

She lived in the woods,

golden hair never bound,

somewhere east of Cape Sebastian,

inherited property

from a rich mother in LA,

now dead.

She made art

from nature,

concocted potions from plants,

drank,

did drugs

with Elvis,

sometimes building

a driftwood fort alone on Pistol River,

or hunting for agates.

Every day,

Crow’s Nest for breakfast,

Sea Star for lunch,

never for meals.

They’d been pulled over

a dozen times in Gold Beach,

always got off.

He a high school gridiron legend.

She, the hair.

I escorted her

to her red, rusted wreck

of a pickup.

I wanted to say more,

but didn’t.

She drove away.

The husky and I hit the beach.

Afterward, I stopped at the grocery store.

I saw her coming out

carrying a box of wine

and a bag of groceries.

We met at her pickup.

She stashed the items.

We were standing face to face.

Customers passed.

She started crying,

said she was an alcoholic

and ready to lose the property

because of back taxes.

I told her I loved her

and gave her a hug.

She hugged me harder,

disengaged,

said she loved me

with a slight slur.

We kissed.

I tasted woodsmoke and wine.

I touched her sternum,

my fingers incinerated.

People stared.

She was known in town.

I asked her to come

back to the motel.

We’d start a new life.

Her old one was almost dead.

We’d bury it together,

start over in our 50s.

It can be done.

She couldn’t do it.

I gave her my number,

call if she changed her mind.

She didn’t call that night.

She has never called.

Reflections on Dad’s Death

NSP Meditations

March 16th marks the one-year anniversary of the death of my dad, Karl Love. The probate process is almost complete. The less said about that terrible experience the better. I took the high road and never wallowed in the gutter like others. Money exposed people for who they really are.

It took considerable effort but I finally transferred my dad’s Oklahoma gas/oil mineral rights to me. So, I will now receive a monthly royally payment that originated from my grandmother’s side of the family, a grandmother I never met, who died when Dad was four, from dust pneumonia in the Dust Bowl. Her lungs literally drowned in dust. A few years later, Dad and his two brothers made their way to Oregon with their step mother. Later, they returned to his Southern roots. And then he made it back to Oregon again.

My dad’s died when he was eight. The old man really did live a Grapes of Wrath story but to Oregon, not California. He saw Hoovervilles and lived out of a car and an abandoned rail car as a kid.

In my will, upon my death, my estate will transfer the mineral rights to an Oregon-based animal welfare organization. Yes, it’s money from oil, oil killing the planet, but at least it will go to a good cause and keep on giving. As Dad always told me about raising money from evil forces to do good: The Devil’s had it long enough.”

There are so many rich stories to recount about Dad’s life. Most of these he shared with me the last four years of his live when I was caring for him in Portland. Smuggling a 32. pistol into Brazil to sell and raise funds for our Church of Christ missionary service. Meeting Ted Williams. His Marine tour of duty during the Korean War where he saw heavy combat and once killed an enemy soldier at point blank range with a burst from a 30-caliber machine gun. Meeting Pele and Elizabeth Bishop at a party in Brazil. Attending segregated high schools in Arkansas. The high school spinster English teacher who had him memorize a hundred poems while she sipped sherry in the classroom from a flask. Playing offensive football in a single wing formation with no face guard on his helmet. Squirrel stew and possum pie for the football awards banquet. (Shot and cooked by the parents of the players!)

I could go on forever. I doubt I’ll do anything with the stories, although the gun running for Jesus one feels like an action novel!

Yes, we had our brutal times together, not violent, just the results from his wayward ways. But we got through them.

Rest in peace Dad. It was an honor to see you through your last years and dispose of the estate with integrity and alacrity.

Alacrity was my dad’s favorite word. It’s the perfect noun on how to conduct one’s life.

I never heard Dad ever utter a cliché. He was a coiner of phrases, many of them related to his long teaching career. One of the more memorable ones: don’t prop up mush.

A Phalanx of Rain

NSP Meditations, Of Walking in Rain, Poetry

A phalanx of rain

marches down a Coos Bay beach.

Elmer and I meander in formation,

minions of a gray legion.

I am soaked to my shorts

this winter morning

at lightless dawn.

I should have worn the pea coat,

woolen armor,

a grizzled veteran

of a quarter century

on the Oregon Coast,

repelling, absorbing

gallons of rain

in silence.

Instead I wear a fancy jacket,

useless, noisy,

made from petrochemicals

that won’t fill my house

with the aroma of a wet dog

when it dries by the fire.

We pass the homeless encampment.

A man emerges.

He waves.

(We’ve met countless times.)

I say good morning.

He’s wearing a green robe and plaid slippers.

I laugh. How can I not?

Where’s the pipe,

burning an exotic Scottish blend,

spiced with Jamaican rum,

trailing wisps of smoke

slaughtered by the phalanx?

I see the man yawn,

rain drops the size of pennies

streaming across his face.

Crater Lake Eyes

NSP Meditations, Poetry

Attending Oregon City High School

I dated a girl with Crater Lake eyes

even though I’d never seen Crater Lake.

I saw this wonder 15 years later: record-setting depth

shimmering a unique shade of blue

that was never replicated in a big box of crayons.

Color mixologists tried and failed a hundred times.

The moment I saw Crater Lake

I dived into her eyes.

Sent up a splash,

then a ripple,

and coined the phrase.

That time I was struck so nervous

driving her to a movie that

I stopped at a green light.

I didn’t hear the horns.

She told me the light was red

and I drove on.

Or that time

I tried teaching her tennis.

She showed up wearing

white terry cloth shorts with red piping,

red and white knee high socks,

and a white t-shirt

scissored with ragged precision

that fell two inches above her naval.

She whiffed every shot!

We moved onto basketball

and she flung layups

over the backboard.

Not too long ago,

I returned to Crater Lake

for the first time

in thirty years.

Crater Lake wasn’t there.

Smoke from a dozen wildfires

smothered everything

and made my eyes burn.

On Turning 62

NSP Meditations

I turn 62 years old today. I can start collecting Social Security. It is my first birthday without my father.

My celebration will consist of improving my three driftwood forts on Whiskey Run Beach and sushi at the neighborhood sushi joint. I’ll also cook a steak for Elmer because that brings me great joy.

I feel fit in body and mind. I am writing with increased vigor and the writing is going in new interesting directions. I feel ready to offer apologies and accept apologies, if anyone knows how to apologize in America anymore. It seems like a lost art.

I feel ready to reconnect with people from my past and connect with people from my present. I will continue to follow through with people although following through also seems like a lost American art these days. Maybe it’s always been that way.

The nightmare of Dad’s probate is nearly over. I will seek out new purpose in this new year of my life.

My great husky Elmer and I are advancing into our Coos Bay world. He’s a secret weapon into local stories.

“Advance always,” said General Grant. If only he’d advanced to justice and lined Robert E Lee against a wall, and ordered a firing squad to “FIRE.” We’d be a different, better nation today. Look at us now.

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