Oregon Tavern Age: Fog

One in the afternoon. Foggy in Empire and 66 degrees. In the Willamette Valley, sizzling sunshine pushed the temperatures past the century mark.

It was quiet in my local OTA joint. The front and back doors were propped open and I saw wisps of fog enter like spies. They probably wanted whiskey.

No one played the slot machines. No one played pool. No music. Sports played silently on multiple screens. A stack of Nora Roberts novels rested on the free table. Should I take one or would it make me too horny?

I was sitting at a high table and thinking about writing a letter. Elmer and I had racked up another fine morning: foggy Coos Bay beach walk, foggy run down the beach at the south jetty of the Umpqua River, and thrift store gold finds in Reedsport.

My run was exhilarating and my conditioning continues to improve in preparation for the Prefontaine Memorial Fun Run at the end of September. I haven’t felt this fit since my days on the wildlife refuge. Elmer is part of that. He parallels me at the ocean’s edge as I run and darts into the surf. It’s the greatest feeling in the world to run on the beach with a dog and feel yourself getting stronger.

To my left, two OTA women were hitting the sauce and one of them said she was still suffering trauma after ending an abusive relationship with a domineering man. It would take six months to heal. Luckily, the sauce helped. Better than expensive therapy with a quack therapist who abstained but lived a life of total phoniness.

An OTA man entered with two micro mutts. Everyone greeted the dogs.

My letter writing was going nowhere.

The screens were advertising the upcoming pro and “college” football seasons. This country could be fighting a low-grade Civil War with real killing and the NFL, Big Ten and SEC would not cancel their seasons. Bread and circus and hot dogs.

Should there be such a Civil War, do you think one player from any professional or collegiate football tam would quit to go fight for his particular preference for the United States? Dictatorship or representative democracy?

No.