[lit-ideas] Re: A Bigger Dawg
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014 19:05:09 -0700
We heard a good line this morning. Pendleton on a Sunday is not a lively
place. You can go to the steak house and order steak and a shot of house
whiskey. Or you can eat at the brewery, which I wouldn't advise. They have a
new cook, who burns fries. Before dinner yesterday evening we took the river
walk and passing some shady characters and some downtown sheep, which had been
set the task of removing riverbank weeds. This morning the owner of the
independent motel we'd chosen, a very small Indian fellow who had moved up from
L.A. because "this place is so nice and quiet," was having extra security
cameras installed on his roof. "You don't want more cameras," said the hugely
overweight electrician who had come to bid on a different job, "you just need a
bigger dawg." We hurried away and so didn't hear whether or not the Indian
launched into the monologue he tried on us. It concerned America's eating
habits.
We were...er...headed towards a milliner. Few of those nowadays, but this one
had a hundred-year-old head-measuring machine. I thought about asking, when
they tried it on me, whether they also did phrenology, but they weren't
evidently the bantering kind of people. I thought it great fun to see exactly
what size and shape my head is and I'm really quite tempted to have a custom
hat made. No, it won't be a cowboy hat. But what might it be? Answers on the
back of a postcard, please, addressed to "What hat should David wear?"
In Joseph and up and down the valley where the Nez Perce used to live, there
are monuments to the noble and courageous people who were kicked out in order
to build Enterprise. That's the name of the town, "Enterprise." The thing you
notice in photos in the county museum is that the Nez Perce don't have pierced
noses. We ate in a restaurant that froze circa 1980. It serves one entree per
night; we got steak, twice baked potato, salad. The wine list had some
interesting selections. "We'd like to try..." I offered.
"Don't have that."
"How about...?"
"Nope."
I tried a third time. I should explain that there was only one waitress for a
room full of people, so my clumsy efforts to find which of the twelve wines on
the list actually did exist were keeping others from saying how they'd like
their steaks cooked. I asked if I could bring in a bottle from the car. No
problem. The last wine on the list? Manischewitz...which was described as,
"Sweet wine from Israel." (I have it filed mentally under, "Cough syrup.")
The steak was fine. It is, after all, beef country.
We stopped to buy beef from a roadside hut. The instructions were quite clear.
You opened the freezer, selected what you want, wrote in the book what you'd
taken, put the money in the steel box. There was another box with money to
make change. The sign said, "Integrity is what you do when no one is watching."
The county museum has a good write-up on an early bank robbery. One of the
gang got away with two thousand dollars and was never seen again. One was shot
dead. A third guy was arrested, given a seven year jail sentence, of which he
served four. He then returned to shepherding, built up his flock, did well,
became vice president of the very same bank.
We saw a young grizzly. It ran across the freeway in front of the car in front
of us. Alas, there was no safe way to take a photo.
Carry on, keeping a sharp eye out for bears.
David Ritchie,
back in
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
