A Wednesday in Winter. Almost noon. I’m sitting in Oregon Tavern Age country waiting on a friend and drinking an IPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few seconds earlier, the female OTA bartender said she saw me on TV last night, the OPB documentary about Vortex I, the only state-sponsored rock festival in American history. It went down outside Estacada in the summer of 1970 and I published a book about it in 2004. I was the expert in the documentary because I know more about this far out event than any other person and will always hold that title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teena Marie’s \u201cLovergirl\u201d plays on the jukebox. Who chooses that song at this time of day or this time of year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m sitting at my usual back table. At the bar, the only other patron in the joint, is a rotund OTA man drinking a double shot of something brown and chasing it with a pint of beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To my right, a representative from Oregon Lottery restocks Keno cards and pencils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A vampire-killer show is playing silently on television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I catch some of the OTA man’s conversation with the bartender. He talking about a special casserole he makes every now and then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It occurs to me that I rarely hit OTA country anymore. Blame it Elmer the madcap husky. I’d rather hang out with him and walk around. I’m writing in my mind like a madman with him pulling me along. He leads me into different kinds of stories than those that unfold in OTA joints, you know like encountering homeless men riding bicycles under a full moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One day I’ll stop writing about OTA life. But not yet. It still produces an interesting story now and then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My friend just walked in. She waves and walks my way. We’ll catch up and plot something fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Wednesday in Winter. Almost noon. I’m sitting in Oregon Tavern Age country waiting on a friend and drinking an IPA. A few seconds earlier, the female OTA bartender said she saw me on TV last night, the OPB documentary about Vortex I, the only state-sponsored rock festival in American history. It went down outside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8779","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\/8779","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=8779"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8782,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8779\/revisions\/8782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}