Oregon Tavern Age: Miscellaneous

Saturday afternoon. Coos County OTA country. The greatest ongoing cultural farce known as “college” football played silently on screens above the bar.

Seven OTAs drank beer or liquor drinks. Four of them regularly checked devices to monitor their health issues: insulin level, heart rate, sodium level, bladder control.

All seven of them periodically left the joint to go smoke a cigarette. They all occasionally bitch about so-called socialism but would be dead without Medicare.

I sat at a table under the stuffed bobcat and drank a local ale. My notebook was out and I had a pen in hand but nothing was motivating me to write, not even the destruction of representative democracy and constitutional law happening right before our very eyes.

One of the OTA men discussed his recipe and process for canning corn beef cabbage. He saved himself a lot of dough, it tasted better, and he didn’t fart as much (which he sorely missed).

A homeless man with a face disfigured by fentanyl entered, played a dollar in a slot machine, lost, and left.

Double negatives flew around the room like so much ticker tape in a New York City parade for a hero. Are there any heroes in contemporary America that might warrant a ticker tape parade?

No.

One of the OTA men who brings onions from his garden to share with the regulars turned my direction. I asked him if he was bringing in some more onions because they were delicious. He said he was all out. Maybe some zucchini or tomatoes soon.

The joint’s owner, an OTA woman, came up to me and said she wanted to buy me a beer. Sure, I said, but why?

Because you’re always doing your homework.

She meant my writing.

A free beer courtesy of an OTA owner of an OTA joint! That was a first for me in OTA country!