The Humboldt Club
Crosscut saws and cork boots in one window
Coast Guard preservers and crab floats in the other
Lending library banished to a dark alcove,
Westerns, Stephen King, Lee Child
“Slow Ride” by Foghat plays
Then comes “Prove it All Night” by Bruce
“I’m not boyfriend material,” a woman says
She sizes up a rival for her
non-boyfriend on her phone.
“That bitch is too cute!”
Mural of old town on the back wall
Illustrations of old timers from back in the day.
The Seahawks grind out a drive
A greyhound for lunch
A white Russian for brunch
Thirsty Thursday Special: $2 Hamm’s All Day
Open 8:30 to midnight
A sign says “This is a Longshoremen bar.”
Not anymore
Union Longshoremen long gone from North Bend
What’s left of them
tend to their blame
like hoeing a dead garden
McGovern carried this county in ’72
That seems impossible
But men who drank here
once knew how their bread
was buttered
A nearby Dollar Tree is hiring
So is the Indian casino
Greet the greeters at Wal-Mart
McGovern tried
He visited the Humboldt, campaigned
He drank with Longshoremen
They slapped his back
He carried Coos County
McGovern lost Oregon
He won one state
He quoted Yeats in his concession speech
You think anybody in America is writing a poem
where George McGovern inhabits the poem?
Yes
Right now in the Humboldt Club
in North Bend
on a Sunday morning in October
with hash browns and an IPA