rogue river park

Oregon Tavern Age: Talkin’ Turkey

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It was a Friday afternoon and sunshine shellacked the windows of Turkey’s. I sipped a local lager and soaked in the ambiance of the greatest tavern in Oregon, which happens to be roughly the size of Thoreau’s cabin.

I almost forgot. Out the window, I could see turkeys crossing a bridge.

The latest preposterous Turkey’s story was Gary’s attempt to fix a portable heater from a resident at a nearby trailer park. She had brought it to the joint, put the damn thing right up on the bar. Gary, a retired electrician, inspected it, diagnosed the problem, and said he would get the part in town, bring it back to Turkey’s, and fix the heater right there! An OTA electrician service call! They set up a time, Gary bought the part, he and Linda showed up, but the woman didn’t and they never saw her again.

An OTA man walked up to me and offered me some beef jerky he’d jerked himself. I had to decline. I told him I was a vegetarian. There was suspicion in his eyes.

Gary told me that in his former life he was a falconer! A falconer! I was sitting next to man who had handled falcons and hearing his stories of falconry! (I might also add he was wearing a $300 Western shirt at the time.) Gary also mentioned that he knew a man who once carried around his money in a pouch he’d made from the scrotum of a big horn sheep.

A man entered Turkey’s and ordered a beer. Outside, his pickup had four flat tires in the bed. He was on his way to get them pumped up at a gas station. Turkey said he he had an air pump in his shop and could rig him right up. The man took up Turkey’s offer.

A rumor is floating around that a hair stylist is going to start cutting hair in Turkey’s kitchen. Cash or barter only. A secret OTA salon. I dismissed this absurd notion at once, but I do need a haircut.

Somehow, because this was Turkey’s, the subject of water witching came up, and Kip or Gary said that Turkey was a bonafide water witcher! And quite a famous one! The word was out in Curry County. For a hundred bucks, Turkey would visit a property, wield his magic willow, and divine where the water lurked in the deep. “He’s never failed,” said Kip. I asked Kip if I might accompany Turkey on a water witching gig because I simply had to see such a sight. “I don’t see why not,” he said.

Linda directed my attention toward a painting of turkeys that was resting on a shelf, above the canned corn and pear halves. I got up to inspect it. Most unusual. The artist, a local man, painted the turkeys on what appeared to be a mushroom of some kind scraped off a tree. “A conk,” Linda said. “They’re called conks.”

I’d never heard the word before or seen it in print. Now Turkey’s was teaching me new vocabulary!

Gary asked if I wanted to hear the story of the time he pulled his friend Bruce’s tooth in the parking lot outside of Turkey’s.

What?

Sure. I’d always wanted to hear a tooth pulling story in OTA country. There was one?

So the story goes: Bruce and Gary were at Turkey’s when Bruce said, “Will you do me a favor and pull my tooth?”

Gary agreed and they went out to the parking lot where Bruce wrapped a string around one of his teeth, and tied the other end to the handle of Gary’s open truck door. The plan called for Gary to slam the door shut and rip out the tooth. Just like in the screwball silent comedies and cartoons.

Everyone in Turkey’s watched from the bar.

The first attempt failed—too much slack in the string. The second attempt succeeded and the tooth rocketed out of Bruce’s mouth and ricocheted off the truck’s bumper. Bruce didn’t scream.

He went back inside Turkey’s and announced that anyone who found his tooth would receive a free beer.

Turkey’s emptied. The tooth was never found. It’s still out there and I suspect I’ll find it one day after a hard, sluicing rain. Or maybe a turkey gobbled it up.

Linda told me about the local chicken with her 11 yellow chicks and two black ones. A cat had swiped a couple, but at least it wasn’t a fox. She also mentioned that recently a regular had lost a beloved Labrador and walked into Turkey’s and broke down crying. He got hugs from the bartender and patrons. He rang the bell and bought the house a round to honor his dog. I should have done that when my husky died.

I was thinking about my great dog when an OTA man walked in carrying paper plates of sandwiches and cookies and set them on the counter. His wife trailed behind him. They both sat down and he ordered a draft beer and she ordered a Keystone Light in a can and glass of ice. A few seconds later she opened the can and poured the beer into the glass. In all my years of roaming OTA country, I’d never seen such a thing.

They had brought the sandwiches and cookies in because it was a semi-regular Friday tradition with them. I asked Linda what kind of sandwiches—tuna—real tuna off a local boat that the woman had canned herself. And, naturally, the cookies were homemade.

I was starving and asked for a sandwich and cookie. The tuna sandwich was the best I’d ever tasted and had hard boiled eggs in it and a delicious and mysterious relish. The cookie was superb, too.

The sandwiches went fast, and two were wolfed down by a young male firefighter covered in soot and grime who didn’t say a single word or fiddle on his phone the entire time he was in the bar.

As I neared the end of my beer, Turkey’s whiteboard food menu captured my attention. I’d never noticed it before. Chili dominated the choices.

I asked Linda about Turkey’s chili. Linda said it was legendary, concocted from a secret recipe handed down to Turkey from his family. Apparently, folks came from miles around to taste the legend and the joint typically ran out. I suspected roadkill found its way into the pot. There might even be wild turkey in the mix.

Turkey chili in Turkey’s made by a man named Turkey, eaten while turkeys come into view.

One day I will figure out what that convergence means, and when I do, I’ll rule Oregon.

I hadn’t tasted meat in over 25 years but the prospect of a Turkey’s roadkill chili dog roiled my imagination and titillated my palate. I felt my stomach could handle the fresh meat in the chili but that an Upton Sinclair hot dog would probably kill me.

My mind drafted a scheme. I would sneak a tofu dog into Turkey’s and then replace the death dog during a diversion of some kind. It would be a perilous undertaking in Oregon tavern age country. I might get beat up or shunned.

But I had to try the chili.

Oregon Tavern Age: Talking Turkey

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I sat at the bar at Turkey’s. Linda and Gary were to my immediate left, Kip to my far right, and two OTA brothers milled around behind me. Turkey was the bartender. A Grand Prix race played on television and the racers were E-cars and barely making a sound. That didn’t go over well with the OTA racing fans.

It was a brutally hot day along the Rogue River. It was Rainiers-chilled-in-the-river time. Then you sat in the river in cutoffs and drank Rainier. No craft beers allowed.

I asked Turkey about the exquisitely crafted trio of wooden pot pipes on display behind the bar. Turkey told me they were made from myrtlewood, Jesus wood, that only grew on the Southern Oregon Coast and in Israel. Turkey said a regular carved the pipes and gave them away. Turkey said it was a lot safer, germ-wise, sharing a pipe rather than sharing a joint. Everyone agreed. I said I had to own a myrtlewood pot pipe made by a Turkey’s OTA regular—right now—even though I didn’t smoke pot. Turkey said he’d hook me up.

Jesus Pot Pipe—great name for a stoner Christian rock band and believe me, in Oregon, there was such a musical niche.

Kip slid across a few stools and landed next to me. He was holding a homemade gizmo of wood and metal with one hand and a saucer of painted Styrofoam in the other.

“What is that?” I said.

“The Shepherd’s Hawk,” he said.

I got off my stool to better inspect. He handed the gizmo to me.

The Shepherd’s Hawk, Kip informed me, was his latest creation. It amounted to a beaver stick approximately three feet in length attached to a metal housing via screws and clamps (think plumbing). A hinge extended from the housing and fitted into a double-grooved slot on a saucer-shaped piece of Styrofoam that Kip had carved into an aerodynamic flier. The flier was painted yellow and black to resemble a swooping hawk.

I sipped my beer and assessed the gizmo while Kip continued his explanation. The idea was to draw the stick back like a Chuck-it! dog toy and then whip it forward, which released the hawk into the sky. He gave me a mini-demonstration of the arm motion but obviously didn’t release the bird inside Turkey’s, although I wished he would.

Kip claimed it could fly a hundred yards on the beach. He said he was registering the paperwork for a patent on Monday.

I told him I’d give him $15 for it.

He refused.

I raised the offer to $20.

No.

I upped to $25 and fanned the bills.

Kip wouldn’t budge. This particular stick and hawk were the prototypes for the patent. He invited me outside to his SUV to browse the rest of the stock. In the scorching sun, he offered me a sickly-looking stick and red saucer decorated with a German Iron Cross, sort of like the Red Baron.

Forget that! I pressed Kip again and he promised me the hawk after he had successfully registered his patent. We shook hands, and Kip got in his SUV and drove away. I went back inside Turkey’s to beat the heat with cold beer.

The subject of ospreys came up, perhaps because one flew by with a woodland creature in its beak and several of us saw it out the window. Gary recalled a time when he was scouring the hull of his boat in his driveway and he heard a thunk and the boat rattled. He looked up and saw an osprey soaring overhead. He looked inside the boat and saw a black snapper on the deck. The osprey had dropped it. Gary cleaned the fish and fried it up for lunch.

One of the OTA brothers then launched into a story about an osprey dropping an eel on someone’s deck not far from Turkey’s. They ate it for supper.

By this time, Tom had replaced Turkey as bartender and had overheard the osprey conversation.

He had an osprey-dropping-something-from-the-sky story to recount as well. There were six people in Turkey’s and three had osprey-dropping-something-from-the-sky stories. I wanted one.

Tom said a woman living up the road was weeding in her garden when an osprey dropped a five-pound steelhead and hit the woman on the back of the head. “It plowed her into the fucking ground, knocked her out cold. She had to go to the hospital!”

He didn’t know if they cooked the steelhead for supper. They probably did. A steelhead from the sky meant something in Oregon and when it didn’t, Oregon was dead.

The osprey stories drove the joint into a frenzy and Gary told me to ring the bell over the bar. That’s the kind of man he was.

I demurred. I was afraid. I’d never rung the “drinks-on-the-house” bell in OTA country before. Gary insisted and I rang the bell, and goddamn it, the peal felt righteous all the way down to my loins!

I wasn’t taking notes, but after the bell rang, I excused myself and ran to the car for a notepad. Upon my return, Tom had a new beer waiting for me in a chilled glass. I took a deep drink and scribbled notes.

A minute later I said to the bar: “I’ve got five bucks that says the next person who walks in here won’t have an osprey-dropping-something-from-the-sky story. No one took the bet.

Oregon Tavern Age: Roosters

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Turkey, the owner of Turkey’s was in the joint and the joint was packed—12 people. Christmas was coming and one of Turkey’s turkeys that roamed the compound surrounding Turkey’s was getting fat.

I pointed out Turkey to my Russian associate wearing her strawberry beret. Turkey’s face glowed with magisterial OTA power. I considered him a holy man and keeper of the eternal languid spirit of OTA life because he told me he would never serve hard liquor in Turkey’s as long as he lived. “I don’t need the money or the hassle,” he said. Upon hearing that, I almost went to kiss his hand in tribute.

It was only a matter of time, however, before Turkey’s became The Last Tavern in Oregon. I would be there at the bitter end, most likely with a documentary film crew in hand.

“You gotta watch out for the cosmic realm,” said Kip, as we all sat at the bar. “It sneaks up on you.” He tippled his Busch Lite for emphasis. It was his signature gesture to punctuate his blasts of OTA inspired philosophy. My associate and I nodded in agreement and tippled ourselves, a local stout. We knew something about sneaking together into the cosmic realm. We were practically spies!

The associate and I had met Kip a few days earlier in her inaugural visit to Turkey’s. In short order, we learned Kip had washed ashore in Gold Beach from New York City 30 years ago after giving his 1937 Plymouth Roadster away to a stranger on the street. He was an artist without formal training and had spent the last ten years touching up dinosaurs at a nearby dinosaur-themed roadside attraction that easily qualified as one of the more bizarre attractions along the Oregon Coast. Kip made toy airplanes from Styrofoam that were a marvel of miniature aviation; he would paint anyone’s portrait in oil (from a photograph) for $500 (and beer); he had custom detailed a friend’s pickup truck with a fern motif design and thus created perhaps the only fern art in the history of American automotive detailing.

At out initial meeting, I bought Kip a beer for his unique artistic accomplishments and my shared love of all things ferns. Upon receipt of Busch Lite, he said, “I like living in the unknown.”

I believed him, despite the Busch Lite. Ferns established his credibility. I trust fern men.

A hummingbird appeared outside the window and sucked from a feeder. Kip saw me admiring the sight. I could watch hummingbirds for hours, particularly when drinking beer at a bar seated next to a philosopher and fern lover.

Kip said, “You ever seen a hummingbird fuck itself to death?”

“What?” I said.

He then launched into a wild story of two hummingbirds stuck in mid flight coitus—right outside this very window!—and their near demise from ecstasy until they finally managed to separate themselves.

I turned to my associate and winked. We both knew that’s the way we wanted to die together.

Turkey’s land line rang. The bartender, Marnita, answered and then walked over and handed me the receiver. “It’s for you, Matt,” she said.

What? I had never received a call like this in OTA country. How did the bartender know my name? Who in the hell was calling me here?

It was Linda from the Sea Star apologizing for her and Gary not showing up at Turkey’s as we had previously arranged yesterday. Something about their friend getting too drunk at a barbecue and offending someone and…I wasn’t figuring it out. I told Linda I’d see her and Gary soon for more Sea Star storytelling and thanked her for the call. I appreciated the gesture.

The gesture was pure class and Linda oozes class more than anyone I’ve ever met in OTA country.

Kip (only one p, he had the second p legally dropped), began a story about a rooster named Papa Jack, a legend at Turkey’s. Marnita moseyed over and took over the telling. I had heard tidbits of this tale a couple of years ago after asking about a faded photograph of a rooster in the restroom with the caption: This Bud is for you. RIP. 3/21/12

The rooster over the toilet was Papa Jack.

The story went like this: Some time ago, Turkey ripped out out the old phone booth in front of the joint and rigged up the space to serve as a perch for one of his roosters, Papa Jack. There Papa Jack would hang out with the regulars who ventured outside to smoke and harangue. This went on for years until one day tragedy struck: a beer delivery truck’s loading gate dropped unexpectedly and squashed Papa Jack into the asphalt.

“Did you fry him up for supper?” I said.

“No, he was too flat!” said Marnita.

Naturally they held a wake for the beloved Papa Jack and someone put up the shrine in the restroom. How many of us humans can say another human will do the same for us in a tavern restroom when we die? I can’t.

But I’m not dead yet, and will strive to earn that recognition in OTA country before I plunge into Hart’s Cove.

We raised our drinks to honor Papa Jack and then Marnita and Kip launched into another story of a dead rooster at Turkey’s. There were two?

His name was Cooper and he replaced Papa Jack until a fox snatched him off the perch in broad drinking daylight while the regulars looked on in horror! The fox had leaped off an embankment across the road, dodged a vehicle, bit into Cooper’s neck, and carried the prey away. The regulars could do nothing to save poor Cooper so they just drank a toast to him instead.

I asked if another rooster had taken Cooper’s place in the perch: no, a bobcat was lurking around the compound and some chickens had gone missing.

It was time to go. I couldn’t hear any more OTA stories or I was going to pass out.

The associate and I left the tavern and walked around the building where my car was parked. I was about to unlock the car when I saw a phalanx of 12 or 13 turkeys headed straight toward us, 20 yards away, traversing a strip of grass abutting the building. I alerted the associate. We just stood there, silently, unsure what to do, and the phalanx kept advancing, now ten yards from us. I had never seen a live turkey up close. They are formidable creatures when headed straight at you. Their swinging gizzards are particularly unnerving. I thought of Hitchcock; this was going to be my OTA Hitchcock moment.

To my left, a blue car drove past me. It was a sedan from the 90s and Turkey was driving it to his compound roughly 50 yards away. The turkeys broke formation and began following Turkey’s sedan. They clearly recognized his the car and caught up to it. He parted the phalanx like a hot knife through a cold draft of Hamm’s. The turkeys regrouped and followed. A few of them lifted off the ground and landed on the roof and front hood of the sedan as it turned into the compound.

I had never seen turkeys fly before.

“That was Turkey driving,” I said.

“I know,” she said.

We looked at each other.

“What is this place?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

But I do know. The greatest tavern in Oregon.

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