The OTA man left the video lottery area of the South Jetty and came over to sit down with two OTA men at a table. They were taking a lunch break from a nearby masonry job to eat club sandwiches and drink root beers. They all knew one another and shook hands.<\/p>\n
I sat five feet away writing a letter to a young wild poet, struggling with statements to encourage her to pursue a life of poetry in the wild when the private wilderness of our lives is under siege by digital corporations and governments, separately, and in collusion.<\/p>\n
There were just the four of us in the bar, not including the bartender. Pop radio played lightly in the background. No sounds emanated from the televisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou getting lucky, making any money on the machines?\u201d said one of the masonry men to the fisherman.<\/p>\n
No he wasn’t. But his response barely registered. He was a quiet man. He wasn’t drinking and had a greasy red ball cap pulled down low, almost in disguise, but he couldn’t hide his face.<\/p>\n
I listened in. The letter could wait.<\/p>\n
The gambler was a fisherman who had just returned from three months at sea, somewhere up near Alaska. He’d found a couple of \u201csweet spots\u201d and the crew had scored. I think he was the skipper of the boat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just came here to be alone, the solitude. The games help with that,\u201d he said, almost in a whisper.<\/p>\n
I’ll never look at video lottery games the same way again.<\/p>\n
The fisherman’s face captured my attention. I previously called all faces playing video lottery games zombies<\/i>. But he wasn’t a zombie. His face was very much alive and he was trying to re-energize himself by being alone after months in cramped quarters on the high seas, probably surrounded by profane assholes like from the fishermen TV shows.<\/p>\n
I know something about seeking solitude. It’s been the story of my creative life. It’s why I visit OTA country. I order solitude on draft there.<\/p>\n
The fisherman excused himself and got up to buy some cigarettes at the convenience store across the street.<\/p>\n
I went back to writing the poet. It was easier because I’d just witnessed a poem unfold in real, face-to-face time in the private wilderness of a man’s mind.<\/p>\n
The fisherman returned a few minutes later and went back to the games.<\/p>\n
I watched his face as I walked out. I saw it reflected in the game. There was no indication he was winning, at least with the game.<\/p>\n
(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n\n The OTA man left the video lottery area of the South Jetty and came over to sit down with two OTA men at a table. They were taking a lunch break from a nearby masonry job to eat club sandwiches and drink root beers. They all knew one another and shook hands. I sat five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[24,101,13,21,27,422,88,685,243,23,684,414],"class_list":["post-3794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-tavern-age","tag-bars","tag-dive-bars","tag-oregon-coast","tag-oregon-tavern-age","tag-ota","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-solitude","tag-south-jetty","tag-taverns","tag-video-lottery","tag-video-slots","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3794"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3797,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794\/revisions\/3797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}