Oregon Tavern Age: First Date

I was no stranger to first dates in OTA country. In fact, it was my preferred place to meet. During the daytime. No babies. No pretensions. Cheap. Languid. Poorly lit. And besides, if my first date didn’t like OTA country, then there wouldn’t be a second. She could always meet a man at Applebee’s.

We sat at the table near the window in the Sea Star. She wore a raspberry beret, the kind you find in a second hand store. Glorie brought over two local stouts and shot me a smirky smile. The Sea Star afternoon regulars gave us the casual once-over and then went back to regular talk.

This was the same table where a year earlier I had discovered a Sheila E CD from the 1980s that featured a Prince-penned tune called “A Love Bizarre” where the writer wants, “A strawberry mind and a body built for two.”

When I heard that bizarre line, I immediately wanted to meet a woman with a strawberry mind even though I had no idea what that proclivity of the brain meant. I doubt Prince did either. That’s why he was a genius and not obviously of the mind.

Actually my first date’s beret was more strawberry color that raspberry. I might also add it was crocheted, the kind you find in a second hand store.

We launched into Rilke’s poetry, surely the only conversation of its kind in the history of the Sea Star or all of OTA country for that matter. One suspects Prince read some Rilke. He’d read Dorothy Parker. He’d actually written a song called “Dorothy Parker.” Why him and not Dick Cheney? Only the purple rain knew.

Speaking of rain, I said to her how overcast days never turned me on, but something about the clouds and her mixed right on the Oregon Coast and she looked as if she could love the rain. She didn’t disagree. What is the color of a wet crocheted strawberry beret? I was going to find out.

We sipped our stouts and spilled our stories. We talked of Russians and old RVs. At one point, when she kissed me, or I should say I kissed her, I knew she knew how to get her kicks and she made me feel like a movie star, the anti-hero kind.

Prince once asked, in another song: “Where have all the raspberry women gone?”

Good question. Maybe the strawberry minds, the kind you find in second hand store, had finally taken over.

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