River Morning

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I walked along a river lined with alder, oak, maple, black cottonwood, Doug fir and cedar. I was astonished by the variety of trees in this riparian area. I passed a couple people sitting in vehicles, staring at the river.

If you visit a place where people can park their vehicles and stare at the river without leaving the vehicle you will see interesting glassed-in faces in need of a river. So there they are, but they don’t manage to get out the vehicle. There’s probably a novella in that not-getting out.

These faces will belong to the owners of an astonishing variety of vehicles, from gleaming $50,000 trucks to duct-taped meth sedans. The river appeals to many people and I suppose there are many different needs for it. I recently discovered a new one for myself.

It was early morning and the river named for a vanished Native American tribe ran a murky green. All manner of birds flitted across my path. I heard geese honking in the distance and a woodpecker pecking nearby. These sounds infiltrated me and purged other, less desirable ones of injurious human construct.

I saw a man wearing an orange jacket standing in a field. What on earth was he doing there? I couldn’t imagine a reason at this hour. He stood motionless for five minutes. I then surmised he was homeless and camping out along the river. I turned my head and a saw a blue heron hunting in a flooded pasture. Orange man, blue heron, not more than a hundred yards away from each other. I kept walking and watching, waiting for either to move. It was almost a showdown between them and I put my money on the heron.

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Oregon Tavern Age: Sea Star Motion

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Sea stars range in speed from 0.3 millimeters per second to 50 millimeters per second.

I clocked the recent winter daytime speed inside the Sea Star Lounge at .7 millimeters per second. Here’s what I observed:

There is an ocean view from the western end of the bar. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone looking at it. I want to see the sun set over the ocean from the farthermost stool while writing a Western set near the ocean, where they are never set. I want that yellow and orange to shoot right through the window and light up my whiskey.

Men talked of gutters. Then they segued to roofing. “Roofing is fun,” a man said. “You get to see things from up there.” He told a story about a rich homeowner who wanted his roof roofed in the snow. He told the homeowner, “You can lick my nuts.” The other man had a story about building a barn by himself. I wish I was a man who could build a barn by himself. Perhaps I got the wrong education in my youth.

There was talk of hand drumming and lucrative boat hatches. There was talk of jagged edges at free pool Sunday. There was talk of Prince’s genius and rock and roll moms. There was talk of purchasing Elvis collectibles and paper routes. I wondered if there was a single kid left in America with a paper route? I recalled a time in Astoria when an OTA man walked into a downtown dive bar wearing an ancient newspaper-carrying bag with a double pocket, ordered a shot of well whiskey, drank it, and left to go deliver the rest of his papers.

I sat next to a man who looked like Ernest Hemingway toward the end of his life. His name is Gary. Gary told me an original Ernest Hemingway story that I had never read before in any of the biographies. He used to live in Ketchum, Idaho (where Hemingway committed suicide with a firearm in 1961) and he knew a man who told him Hemingway didn’t use a shotgun to kill himself, as was universally reported. Hemingway had used his elephant gun. Gary’s friend knew this because he owned a welding shop and Hemingway’s family brought the prodigious rifle in and wanted him to dismantle it—right in front of them, right now. He did but hated doing so. Where are the remains of that rifle? Someone has a part of it displayed somewhere.

Gary has a Mariel Hemingway story, too. He wired her cabin deep in the Idaho woods. This got me thinking about Mariel Hemingway in Personal Best, the obscure and unjustly reviled movie about female track athletes and their romantic entanglements, filmed in Eugene in the early 80s. Reportedly, the Nike brass hated the film because of the lesbianism. We’ve come a long way baby.

There was a looming showdown between a cook and his boss of another joint in town. His friend offered to buy him a shot of tequila and beer before the showdown. “I can’t have a shot and beer. I have to work in half an hour.” A few seconds passed. “Fuck it!” the cook said and the shot and beer appeared with alacrity. “I can drink a lot of booze in half an hour,” he said, “especially if someone else is paying.”

Gary was in the other day and wearing pressed black Levi’s and a righteous and resplendent black, white and gray Western shirt unbuttoned three buttonholes down. He was also sporting a gold chain with a medallion and sporting them well. It occurred to me that Gary’s look in this outfit should adorn a unit of currency for OTA country.

A white bulldog bolted into the lounge and was introduced by his owner. “I’d like you to meet the dog that drank all my Jameson’s.”

“Dreaming” by Blondie came on the jukebox, loud. The lounge wriggled a bit. Dreaming is free,the song goes. Two beautiful tipsy women played pool in the afternoon and I could tell they were dreaming.

The door opened. There was nobody there. A man at the bar said, “There’s my date. She’s attractive. She might have sex with me.”

Glorie the bartender narrated a story about a tip of canned deer for the cable guy and bear tacos she ate with a hangover. Someone mentioned they’d eaten roadkill squirrel tacos before. Canned Deer and Bear Tacos are great rock band names.

I told Glorie to steal a jar of canned deer from her boyfriend. I simply had to have it. A few days later, she handed me a Mason jar of deer. The meet was purple and stringy and veiny and moved like the bottled aliens in the Alien franchise. To hold the can in your hand is to almost vomit.

The new 78-inch televisions were giving me vertigo and whiplash. I know of the last tavern in Oregon without a television. The last time I visited, everyone was asleep, including the 83-year owner and sole employee. I took a nap, too. I woke up and had a fresh draft of Rainier waiting for me.

I drank the best cup of coffee of my Oregon Tavern Age life in the Sea Star.

A man tried fixing Glorie’s belt, right on the bar. He said: “I can’t believe I’m trying to fix your belt. I’ve been trying to get in your pants for years.”

There is a window at the back of the lounge that affords a downward view of the smallest skate park in America and certainly the only one next to a bar. You can pull up a stool and watch the skating while drinking a beer.

Art joined in our conversation about vegetarianism: “I eat meat and beat my meat.” Art relayed a story about being 86’d from a local bar and he had no idea why.

A transient brisked in off the street selling bogus mistletoe for $5. He suckered Glorie into a sprig and she hung it up over the bar. But no French kissing allowed was the general rule.

Glorie told me an Oregon story: A while back she was having her styled in a Brookings salon when her boyfriend texted and asked if she wanted to come see him run a log yarder in a clearcut somewhere way up the Chetco River. He had a friend who would pick her up outside the salon in an empty log truck and taxi her way to the show. She was game and looking good for the clearcut and her man. She said she had a wonderful time. Don’t get no more Sometimes a Great Notion than that!

A woman walked in wearing an orange top that was mostly black bra.

I have always wondered about people who walk in the lounge and go straight over to the video slots, play for a few minutes, then leave without buying a drink or saying a word.

Three women blew into the lounge, three loud women in smart non-OTA attire. They were from Crescent City and on a holiday drinking and shopping run to Gold Beach. They had Crown Royal in the car, Crown Royal back in the room, and they ordered Crown and sodas at the bar. We all got up and moved away from them.

I had a long conversation with Tara the bartender who wants to open a small business in Gold Beach and do something unique with it. Unique can work here, but it has to be subtle. Exuberance draws suspicion.

An overly loud tourist rang the bell over the bar that tolled “drinks on the house.” He said he just wanted to hear how it sounded. Tara braced him and held him accountable. I got a free porter!

I heard that Miranda the bartender sketches Sea Star characters! I must see them. I must sit for a napkin portrait. I want to frame a napkin portrait of Gary and Linda! I want Miranda to stage a napkin portrait gallery show in the Sea Star! I’ll handle the publicity.

Goddammit! I am supposed to be writing an erotic novella about tennis in the 1970s when I sit at my table in the corner with the ocean view. But I keep writing about what’s happening around me here in the Sea Star! How can I not? I’m being magnetized.

An ad for Amazon’s Alexa came on television. It begged the question: could it one day replace Glorie? Could all the bartenders in OTA country be replaced by Alexa-like robot devices? Can you imagine Alexa responding to a question like: “Alexa, can I have the bear tacos and Hamm’s special?” There will never be an algorithm for that. There will never be an algorithm for OTA country. Everything is utterly random except for the consistency of the regulars and their stories and the utter unpredictability of the bartenders. If I want an algorithm, I’ll go to a brew pub and hear babies bawl.

I remarked to Terry that I liked his new haircut. “I did it myself,” he said.

A man said he once was a server in the Sea Star when it wasn’t called the Sea Star—for one night. There was a Chippendale’s-like all male revue staged here back in the 1980s. The joint was packed like sardines and dolled-up ladies waited in a long line to get in! The man said he made $700 in tips! He said he plans to bring a similar program back to Gold Beach in the near future, but not in the Sea Star. He also mentioned that he was recently in a Coos Bay bar after a midget wrestling event in town. The midgets came into the joint after the gig, got roaring drunk and hurled themselves off the bar in some kind of contest. He said he was going to try and bring the midget wrestlers to Gold Beach, too, and most likely into the Sea Star. Someone remarked that France banned midget tossing. Glorie said she wanted to throw a midget off the bar. She drinks wine so I asked: “What wine goes with midget tossing?”

Gary, Linda and I had a long conversation about tatting. I had never heard of the word until Linda mentioned it in connection to the handmade lace doilies that decorated practically every white middle class home in America a half century ago. “I wished we still had doilies in our lives,” she said. Amen.

Linda and I had a deep discussion about the classic 1975 film documentary Grey Gardens. It’s her favorite film and she told me she used to host screenings of the documentary in her home and everyone had to dress up in the exceedingly eccentric style of the the exceedingly odd mother and daughter who were profiled.

The trivia question was: “What is the name of the runt rabbit in Watership Down? No one at the Sea Star had heard of it. I couldn’t believe it! I had read the book twice, taught it once, and seen the animated classic, but the name was….escaping me. This was my chance to win a free beer, a dark beer, a porter and my porter was gone and I was cashless. I waited and thought. It wasn’t coming to me. Think! Put some of those book smarts to decent use for a change. Our discussion turned to books, particularly Stephen King books. Glorie was a big fan. She had read them all except King’s book On Writing. “Fiver!” I exclaimed. “The runt’s name was Fiver!” My porter gloriously materialized within seconds. It felt somewhat satisfying that being somewhat highly literate could produce such a delicious creamy result.

I’ve never been here at night. I really don’t want to see what goes down. All the best coastal dive bar stories and storytelling occur in the daytime, some of them even before noon. I just wrote this at 11:50 while Terry was watching a Stallone action film and drinking his Budweiser long neck.

Glorie set me up with a free shot of Goldschlager Cinnamon Schnapps because we were talking about shots. I hadn’t downed a shot of booze in OTA country in 15 years and my gullet winced at the thought. Tiny gold flakes fluttered in the glass. My hand trembled. It was like a shaken (not stirred) snow globe of a shot. There I was in Gold Beach drinking gimcrack Goldschlager mouthwash on a golden afternoon and I was thinking if only Barry Goldwater was alive to restore honor to the fool’s gold Republican Party. I sipped the Goldschlager, rinsed my mouth, and shuddered. Did you know the Romans used to execute traitors by pouring molten gold down their throats?

The Sea Star trivia question for Saturday: who sang the the 1962 hit “Runaround Sue”? I answered Dion and won a free porter. I thought about the Runaround Sue I used to know, a drunk country singer who dumped me for a drunker rock and roller. I wrote a country song about her, “I Had to Put My Dog Down Today, Wish It Had Been My Ex-Girlfriend.” It is surely the only country song about euthanizing a dog in the history of country music and I damn well need to play it in the Sea Star!

Glorie told me a story about a customer who didn’t know what the equator was, let alone where it was.

I heard a legend about a wild and lithe Sea Star beauty from days gone by. Virtually every OTA joint has a similar tale. These beauties fade like a cedar-shingled roof in OTA country after 20 years of rain.

Gary and I somehow struck up a conversation about gizzards. He had his own recipe that involved cooking them in a pot with chicken broth, rolling them in flour, then frying them up in egg and bread crumb batter in a cast iron skillet. It had to be a cast iron skillet or don’t even bother. Gary often brought his gizzards to the local OTA potlucks, mostly wakes or big football games. “They’re always gone in minutes,” he said. I somehow took great comfort in knowing that I was sitting next to a man who had his own gizzard recipe and had secret knowledge about Ernest Hemingway.

Oregon Tavern Age: Conversations

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(In honor of Oregon Governor Kate Brown proclaiming April as Oregon Tavern Age Month, the blog will feature a full week of OTA stories. A new book of these tales is slated for a fall publication in some atypical publishing format.)

Four OTA men in the South Jetty sat two tables away: Bud, IPA, Busch, screwdriver. They projected a hazy aura of criminal mischief: the usual garden variety miscreant behavior that makes for wonderful storytelling later.

Rain ripped outside—five straight straight-jacket days. An OTA woman working a Video Lottery machine announced she’d just booked passage on Noah’s Ark. It was going to be a real booze cruise.

I was writing a letter to a woman who planned on becoming the first woman to wear a tennis skirt in OTA country and not after playing tennis. I was telling her how 20 minutes earlier, I had seen a sneaker wave drop two women in the surf, but they managed to stand up and live.

A first round NBA game played on television. Nobody cared.

The men were engaged in a spirited conversation about literature—Tom Clancy or John Grisham. I’d never read a book by either author, but these readers knew them well.

I wondered if anyone else in OTA country was discussing literature on a Sunday afternoon while rain sent rivers up to flood stage. Were there two drywallers talking about Moby Dick or The Deerslayer? Was there a roofer in love with Emily Dickinson or Elizabeth Bishop? I desperately wanted to believe there was. And idea hit me: what about starting a book club that meets in OTA country and only reads novels by American authors who drank themselves to death. I could lead it and get my teaching fix. We could start with Hemingway, Fitzgerald or about a hundred others.

The book critics got up and left. In the wind I heard talk of roofing, caulking, logging and loggers whose dogs were killed in the woods by trucks, machinery and downed trees.

Another man sat at the bar and talked to himself. It was more of a debate.

A couple of OTA men behind me struck up a conversation about sea lions. They wanted them all killed. They’re eating all the fake hatchery salmon. They’re out of control.

I’d heard the sea lion story a hundred times in taverns and bars along the Oregon Coast and have never offered a rebuttal, although I dearly wanted to and let loose with the word pinniped.

Long ago, I learned that rebutting the various natural resource extraction myths that predominate in OTA country is a useless endeavor. It’s not the right venue. This is, however, in my mind, the right venue for something else, although exactly what else remains to be seen. It’s an ongoing conversation.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Oregon Tavern Age: Incident Report

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(In honor of Oregon Governor Kate Brown proclaiming April as Oregon Tavern Age Month, the blog will feature a full week of OTA stories. A new book of these tales is slated for a fall publication in some atypical publishing format.)

I sat on a stool at the far end of the bar in one my favorite OTA joints. I had never sat there before, but some interloper had stored his gear on my beloved corner table, and thus I had to find new lodgings. Change is rarely good in OTA country. I don’t like it at all.

The female bartender came up and took my drink order: a local stout. I looked up at the liquor selections behind her and saw a large white binder resting upright on the shelf. The handwritten spine read: Incident Report.

“What’s that?” I said, pointing at the binder.

She brought over my beer, turned to the shelf, pulled the binder free from some bottles of booze, and set it on the bar. She then put one finger to her lips, said nothing, and moved down the bar.

I opened the Incident Report and perused it in semi-stealth.

It took me all of five minutes of speed reading to realize that I had unearthed the greatest primary source document in the history of OTA: the binder contained reports of unruly customer conduct written by bartenders (in longhand!) after their shifts. Most reports were logged in well after midnight. All were written by by women who knew how to curse and fight and write in the terse, unadorned, vodka-clear declarative prose style straight from the Ernest Hemingway school of writing. It occurred to me that these women were probably the only writers in the state chronicling the Oregon (inebriated) human condition at that ungodly hour and were doing so sober after long hours dealing with drunks and miscreants.

I called the bartender over for the dope on the Incident Report. She whispered: every bar has one. They are required by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission; a server or bartender must write up the incident before she leaves work. There is an online reporting system but she didn’t know how it worked and the bartenders preferred writing in longhand, on official forms or whatever paper happened to be available. No, she hadn’t written one up because she works the daytime shift.

This was beyond belief! I had been documenting OTA country life for over 20 years and never heard of the Incident Report, let alone seen one, let alone read one! How did I possibly not know of their existence? Think of the crazy stories contained within the dozens upon dozens of binders all across OTA country! If I had access to them all, I might win the Nobel Prize for OTA Literature and get free beer for life! But how to gain access?

I quietly asked the bartender if I could borrow the Incident Report for one hour and read it in its entirety.

“Yes, but no names,” she said.

I gathered up the Incident Report nonchalantly under my pea coat and moved to the back table.

There I read:

12:30 am

I heard a crunching sound coming from the bathroom and upon arrival found J outside with the door ripped off two hinges. I asked J what happened and he said he thought he was trapped so he, “charged like a bull.”

1:30 am

M, a regular customer, ran into the bar bleeding from his face.

2:00 am

S came out bitching at me cuz I told them to shut the fuck up. S tried fighting me in the bar and two friends were holding her.

10:30 pm

T threw a glass over the fence of the smoking area. I told him he had to leave. I went to give his mom his tab and she came unglued and called me a bitch and the C word. I told her she was 86’d.

11:30 pm

M headbutted T. T punched him in the face. Words were exchanged. I interjected and M willingly left.

11:00 pm

She got halfway through her bloody mary and fell off her stool. Shortly after, she drove over a wall and into the skate park.

11:00 pm

Another lady came in and I could tell she wasn’t all there.

11:30

Caught S from ***** squirting mustard and ketchup over someone’s backside.

12:00 am

We found his medical papers from the hospital. He had been released that day after drinking too much.

10:30 am

Two guys walked in and sat down at the bar. They asked for long islands. I served them. I took a good look at them and realized that they were really dirty and smelled awful (one was wearing a raccoon hat). They told me they were doing laundry across the street.

1:00 am

I told S he had to leave. I saw him run out the front door. He put his bare ass on the window outside and made faces with his ass. Later S’s friend brought in a potted plant telling me it was from S.

1:15 am

At the end of the night, another customer witnessed K throw up next to the bar. He just sat there and didn’t tell, pretended nothing happened. I took away his drink, swiped his card, and told him to clean it up. He acted like he didn’t hear me. I told him again and handed him the broom, dust pan and paper towels.

1:15 am

Tall guy. Last name C. Was in a fight a month ago. It all started when he wrote “bitch” on his credit card slip.

1:00 am

N and another guy got into a confrontation. N threw his beer and it shattered everywhere. They both went down.

6:55 pm

B fainted.

I closed the Incident Report. It was all real, insane and pathetic and tragic, but hardly the whole story of reality in OTA country. I knew the other (better) part. You’ve read about some of that story here.

It was time to go. I went up to the bar and tucked the Incident Report under some towels. The bartender was at the far end. We met in the middle.

“Thanks,” I said, and slipped her a $20. “Check the towels.”

She nodded.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Oregon Tavern Age: Hearts

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(In honor of Oregon Governor Kate Brown proclaiming April as Oregon Tavern Age Month, the blog will feature a full week of OTA stories. A new book of these tales is slated for a fall publication in some atypical publishing format.)

Two OTA couples entered the South Jetty bar. Teeth were scarce but smiles were not. The couples seemed jubilant, like most toothless people are in OTA country.

One of the men carried a red, heart-shaped pillow. I’d never seen that before in OTA country. He called out to the bartender, “Hey, I’m alive!” He seemed almost surprised by it. The bartender certainly was and said so.

“Go ahead and tell everyone I’m alive,” he added.

The man sat down at a table with the others and the bartender moseyed over. The man did not sit on the pillow as I thought he would. He clutched it to his chest. He ordered a rum and Coke and they ordered white wine, a Mai Thai and a whiskey and soda.

I was sitting a table away writing about a dead man’s writing that I’m resurrecting.

The man put his head down on the table and announced he wasn’t feeling well. His wife asked if he was all right. She touched his shoulder.

It occurred to me that he might die. That would be a first for me in OTA country but I had heard of it happening, usually in the afternoons with the old timers, before they could finish their drinks.

It was the afternoon. He hadn’t even sipped his drink.

The man raised his head and his eyes were closed. He leaned back.

Would I have to intervene with CPR? I didn’t really want to get up, but I probably would.

The group began talking. I eavesdropped. The man had just been released from a Portland hospital after open heart surgery. He’d gone straight to the bar to celebrate. The doctor held him a few days longer than he liked. It was torture. He had a stint in.

The drinks materialized. The man stood up and moved the pillow to his left hand. He grabbed the rum and coke with the his right. He stood up and began shuffling toward the video lottery area. He stopped and took a deep drink of his cocktail. The other man got up and escorted him under the arm.

Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” came on the radio. I am not making that up. I thought about Kurt Cobain and how Kurt was dead. You could hear it in “Heart-Shaped Box” and he was alive when he recorded it.

The man shuffled past me and I watched him enter the video poker area. He found his favorite stool and sat down in front of a machine, but did not sit on the pillow. He set his drink on the machine and fished out some cash. He fed the machine and punched up a poker game. He held the pillow tight to his chest with both hands and began to play in the most curious way. I just watched. I knew he was either going to die or hit a heart flush, perhaps both at the same time.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Oregon Tavern Age: Jeffers Garden Inn

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(In honor of Oregon Governor Kate Brown proclaiming April as Oregon Tavern Age Month, the blog will feature a full week of OTA stories. A new book of these tales is slated for a fall publication in some atypical publishing format.)

I stood at the threshold of the Jeffers Garden Inn, a modest blue building located on a mysterious industrialized strip in Astoria that in the coming years, might represent the only grit left in Astoria as the onslaught of gentrification continues and tourists clamor for more and better cannabis-infused fudge.

Before I entered, I noticed something adjacent to the joint, unprecedented in OTA country: a miniature golf course, unkempt and blackberry-ridden for sure, but there, impossibly, there. And apparently still playable because putters and golf balls leaned against a wall near the first hole.

I went in and the place was sound asleep. Glorious slumber reigned. No radio, no televisions, no sounds from the Video Lottery machines, no conversations. Two OTA men sat at the bar and read a newspaper upright, the old school way. I hadn’t seen two people reading a newspaper in OTA country for over ten years, let alone upright. It almost brought tears to my eyes.

An elderly woman came up to me and I ordered a can of Rainier. She pulled it from an ancient cooler behind the bar and cracked it open. The crack echoed around the room. The men didn’t look up from the papers. They might have been asleep.

I inspected the back bar. Family pictures and trophies. My kind of décor. No liquor served, just beer and wine. No craft beer. No fancy wines. Wine came in little bottles. I was drinking cheap beer in a real somnolent Oregon tavern and they are almost gone the way OTA Astoria is almost gone.

If a can of Rainier is cracked open in OTA country and no one is around to drink it, what is that sound? We know the sound of one can of Rainier opening, but what is the sound of no Rainier opening in OTA country? I think about these things during these final years of the last Oregon Taverns. I think five are left on the Oregon Coast.

I found myself nodding off so I made the acquaintance of the bartender and talked her up: Betty Chilson has owned the Jeffers Garden Inn since 1979. “It used to be called Mary’s Tavern, but I changed it because I was tired of being called Mary,” she said. As for the miniature golf course, “In 1984 we put it in,” said Betty, “and then it later sort of got away from us. The rain had something to do with that.”

Rain has a way of doing that to persons, places and things in OTA country.

I asked Betty if any celebrities had ever visited. She said back in the 1980s, two celebrities came in and perhaps they were Andy Gibb and Victoria Principal. Or perhaps Johnny Paycheck and Tanya Tucker after gigging the county fair.

One of the newspaper man woke up and ordered a beer. I ordered another Rainier.

Nap time.

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