Oregon Tavern Age: Snow Day

South Jetty Bar. Snow fell hard outside. Call it a flurry. There was snow on the ground and a snow day for the kids and their parents if the parents worked in the various outdoor trades or didn’t work at all.

The parents were drinking harder than the snow fell outside. Call it a flurry. Shots. Beers. Cocktails.

It was early afternoon in late February. Several OTA regulars sat at the bar in silence. They didn’t even know it was snowing.

I sat at my usual table and drank a decidedly non-snow day drink of a local IPA the color of fresh urine in fresh snow. I was still on a perpetual snow day in my life, waiting for the thaw. The Winter Olympics played on television. It was impossible to measure my indifference toward them. A more interesting Winter Olympics was going on inside the South Jetty OTA snow globe and there was real snow falling outside, not fake stuff made by machines. The only good thing about increased global warming is that it will soon put an end to the Winter Olympics.

The parents played pool, video slots and cussed, men and women cussing and laughing. They told stories of catching snowflakes on their tongues and chasing them with Fireball and of scantily-clad grandmothers sneaking outside for some snow hi jinks. There was, however, an urgency to the parents that baffled me. Why not relax? Snow usually helps people with that, at least where I hail from.

Then I got it. Their kids were right outside in the parking lot, throwing snow balls, making snowmen, making snow satans, while their parents stopped in for a quick belt, game of pool and game of chance. What the hell? Hell yes!

Don’t ever tell me American parents are losing their touch raising responsible, independent children.

I thought about getting up and witnessing good parenting in action (because it is so rare these days), but that would have required getting up, and it was a snow day after all.

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