{"id":7425,"date":"2021-11-01T07:24:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T14:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=7425"},"modified":"2021-11-01T07:24:25","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T14:24:25","slug":"oregon-tavern-age-porter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/oregon-tavern-age-porter\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon Tavern Age: Porter"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-7425\" data-postid=\"7425\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-7425 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n\n\n<p>I walked into an OTA joint for the first time. It was a rainy, gray Tuesday afternoon and I wanted a dark beer and some quiet joint to work on my latest Oregon Coast Christmas tale. I was supposed to stop writing them last Christmas, but here I was writing one again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a strong possibility that I was the only writer in Oregon, perhaps in all of America, who was writing a Christmas tale where Carlo Rossi wine, the Vietnam War and a waterfall were instrumental to the plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As soon I pushed open the door, I knew I had the right place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Six people sat at the bar. They were hitting it pretty hard and talking loudly, talking bullshit about celebrities and grudges. Luckily the joint has a far corner away from the tumult. I spied a little table near a window that over looked a street named for a former British Prime Minster who was more sophisticated and progressive 170 years ago than Britain&#8217;s current boorish and fascist Prime Minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I ordered a porter at the bar. Apparently two kids were drinking with their parents which struck me as incredibly odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I carried the porter to my table. I couldn&#8217;t hear the banality at the bar. I sipped the porter. Damn good. It tasted like a porter and not hazelnut or apricot or chocolate. Any time I drink a porter I am transported back in time to one of the most mysterious and beguiling women I have ever known. She was a porter drinker. That was it. Porter only and chased with psychedelics. She was a character in a novel living off the page in real life. I wonder where she is today. She wanted to write a book. Maybe she did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An OTA man came over to the pinball tables near me. He played and cussed. I set up my writing things and went to work. I had a deadline. Christmas was coming and this was my gift to friends and family. Outside a woman was sitting at a picnic table drinking a shot of something and playing on her phone while rain fell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The writing went well. I expanded the story. Whenever that happens, you know you&#8217;re on a roll. Then of course, you cut most of it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thirty minutes later, I was the only customer left and I liked that feeling in a big city. I considered ordering a second porter, but, well, there was still work to do.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I walked into an OTA joint for the first time. It was a rainy, gray Tuesday afternoon and I wanted a dark beer and some quiet joint to work on my latest Oregon Coast Christmas tale. I was supposed to stop writing them last Christmas, but here I was writing one again. There was a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-tavern-age","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\/7425","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=7425"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7428,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7425\/revisions\/7428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}