{"id":7731,"date":"2022-04-08T07:21:08","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T14:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=7731"},"modified":"2022-04-08T07:21:09","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T14:21:09","slug":"oregon-tavern-age-mia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/oregon-tavern-age-mia\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon Tavern Age: MIA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I stepped inside the Gladstone Card Room. A cluster of OTAs loudly held court around a round table in the middle of the room. One stood. One was barely standing. The other sat in a wheelchair. They were all hitting it hard with cheap beers and shots of something brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was three in the afternoon on a weekday. I sat on a stool at the bar. A friend was meeting me to catch up on life. A sign over the liquor offerings announced Gina as my bartender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gina wasn’t anywhere around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music played. Sports played. An OTA played a slot machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I waited for five minutes. No Gina. I stood up to see if she was in the kitchen. She wasn’t. I roamed around and inspected the photographs of the joint’s Hall of Fame Dead OTAs and the various fliers promoting the celebrations of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still no Gina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An OTA man came up behind me and fed a jukebox. Another OTA man, three stools away, sipped a coke. No one said a word to me about Gina’s prolonged absence. They didn’t care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Card Room was obviously a fan of Oregon State University because there was a lot of beaver football memorabilia and promotions hanging from the walls. I kind of liked it. I always prefer OSU Beavers-themed dives to UO Ducks-themed dives. Why? I like beavers more than ducks and I loathe Phil Knight and his support of crackpot Oregon politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got up again to check out the smoke shack, thinking Gina might be out there puffing or vaping away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Gina. Just two OTAs and a young couple in OTA training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifteen minutes elapsed. Gina didn’t appear and neither did my friend. I now can’t recall what I thought about as I waited. Most likely nothing interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left the Card Room. In all my years of hanging out in OTA country, this MIA bartender was a first. I wondered what Gina was all about. Her utter indifference might have been charming. I’ve known a couple of female OTA bartenders like that. Their not-giving-a-shit is delightful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat down on a bench outside the joint. I waited another 15 minutes for my friend. He never showed. I wasn’t upset at all. I didn’t feel like talking anyway.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I stepped inside the Gladstone Card Room. A cluster of OTAs loudly held court around a round table in the middle of the room. One stood. One was barely standing. The other sat in a wheelchair. They were all hitting it hard with cheap beers and shots of something brown. It was three in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-7731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-tavern-age","tag-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\/7731","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=7731"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7734,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731\/revisions\/7734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}