A Friday afternoon in Coos Bay OTA country. I was sitting at a table near the front door a few feet from the bar. On the wall above me was a framed tribute to a former OTA regular who died after a bar fight in this joint a couple years ago. Apparently he got sucker punched. No one was ever charged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was drinking an Oregon ale and writing in my journal about the extraordinary day I’d just experienced with my great friends in Port Orford. One of them had crafted me a customized half burn barrel that would soon bring me boundless outdoor pleasure. Almost 20 years had passed since I was a burn barrel man\u2014now I was again. Oh what grand risque times unfolded around my burn barrel! I could write a book about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An OTA couple sat at the bar. They were hitting the sauce hard and talking very loudly, almost yelling at each other. I didn’t mind at all because they were telling OTA stories and telling them with profane gusto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They riffed so fast I couldn’t keep up with my note taking, but I was able to glean this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was something about the man reading Playboy in the 70s as a kid and learning how to install a car stereo.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There was something about the man having ringworm and the woman saying, \u201cMaybe if I sucked your dick it would get rid of it.\u201d He thought that an excellent remedy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There was something about the man needing a chainsaw to cut down his pot plants.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There was something about the man using a neck brace for some kind of insurance fraud.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There was something about the woman taking a shot of white tequila and almost throwing up but it made her really fucking horny.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A bespectacled and toothless man wearing the greasiest blue and purple Western shirt in the history of Western apparel approached the couple. They hailed him as \u201cEd.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I stopped writing and looked at Ed’s face and felt utterly mesmerized. I had never seen such a face in three decades of patronizing OTA joints. It almost glowed; it was well beyond OTA. But where was that unknown territory? At the moment, the answer eluded me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ed had apparently delivered a pack of cigarettes for the couple from a nearby smoke shop. He was promised a drink for his errand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I couldn’t stop staring at Ed’s face. Something in his countenance thwarted all my abilities as a writer to describe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What was it? Beatific? Possibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I saw the OTA man slip his hand down the pants of his partner. She fought him off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It hit me! When I looked upon Ed’s face, I was gazing upon a man who had transcended OTA status. He had achieved OTA nirvana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exactly what that means, I do not yet know as of this writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Friday afternoon in Coos Bay OTA country. I was sitting at a table near the front door a few feet from the bar. On the wall above me was a framed tribute to a former OTA regular who died after a bar fight in this joint a couple years ago. Apparently he got sucker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coos-bay","category-meditations","category-oregon-tavern-age","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}