My\nassociate and I pushed our way in the Rose Garden Inn in Drain and\nwalked into a saloon straight from a set of an Alan Ladd Western,\nminus the carpeted floor, which is terrible for any Western because\nyou can’t see a man’s blood pool on the floor after a shootout. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She\nwas on acid, a light dose she told me. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\nlooked around. A strange older woman playing video poker was the only\nother patron. Strange<\/em> because I had no powers to describe her\nhair, makeup, attire or body composition. She was beyond description\nor understanding, even for someone on acid observing her. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nlending library near the wood stove beckoned. I strolled over and\nfound it packed with cheap Westerns from the 50s and 60s. I borrowed\ntwo because I was writing a modern Western, a kink one, with lots of\nmeth, one great ass, but no acid. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n On\nthe way back to the bar, I noticed the only non-Western thing in the\nRoad Garden Inn\u2014an advertisement for a yoga class above the bowling\nalley in Drain. I’d love to meet anyone who takes a Yoga class in\nDrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\nordered a couple of IPAs from the female bartender. Resting on the\nbar, was an old school black and white print newspaper, a 12-pager.\nThe front-page story was about the truth of Jesus’ resurrection. The\nother lead stories were about dead people who didn’t resurrect. The\nbartender told me the paper was back in print after a year-long\nhiatus after the previous publisher died. Who said print is dead?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nbartender was nice and friendly and I drilled her with questions. In\nshort order I discovered her family moved here in ’42, the joint\nused to be called the Chug-a-Lug, and it once served breakfast and\ndinner to the loggers who lived in the log cabins out back. I also\nasked about the 14-point elk mounted over the entrance to the\nkitchen. It had a plaque underneath that read: \u201cDick Blomberg.\n1974. Brush Creek. Drain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She\ngave me the lowdown. Dick Blomberg was still alive! He still drove a\nlog truck! He would be in any minute for his Happy Hour Budweiser.\nHe probably had a million OTA stories of drinking in Drain and\ndrinking while killing elk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A\nyoung woman entered the bar. The bartender had a cocktail waiting for\nher before she sat down at the bar. She took a sip and began\nscrolling through her phone with disinterest. My associate and I\nliked the look of her so we struck up a conversation. That’s what you\ndo in OTA country. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda\nwas a quasi machinist at a machine shop in Drain that produces\nexactly one product\u2014a replacement part for a corn husking\ncontraption used exclusively in Cornland, America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She\nwas a great storyteller and loved to hunt and fish. She loved Drain\nand doubtless Drain loved her, too. She grew up in Drain and then\nreturned after unhappy stints in the big cities. Her employer offered\ngood pay, health insurance and a retirement plan. Amanda took pride\nin a job that required perfect concentration or something metal might\nbreak loose and pierce someone’s body. I hadn’t heard anyone describe\na job with so much pride and with such precise technical detail in\ndecades, perhaps ever. I loved hearing it. She taught me with her\nwords. She inspired me. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\ndrank our beers and ordered another round. While I waited for Dick,\nmy associate talked with Amanda. I passed the time writing a haiku:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rose\nGarden. Drain rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kat’s\non acid. Kink Western \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n underway.\nWrite it. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My associate and I pushed our way in the Rose Garden Inn in Drain and walked into a saloon straight from a set of an Alan Ladd Western, minus the carpeted floor, which is terrible for any Western because you can’t see a man’s blood pool on the floor after a shootout. She was on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[1049,1048],"class_list":["post-5199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-tavern-age","tag-drain-oregon","tag-rose-garden-inn","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\/5199","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=5199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5202,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions\/5202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}