Newport, OR – late night

I may not come home.

After I drop Suzy off at the Portland airport on 9/1, I’m coming back to Newport.  And I might not come home.

I felt more comfortable here, 3500 miles from my house, than I have in several months.  It took me about twenty minutes at the Rogue Brewery Tasting House.

This was not the big restaurant where they serve Rogues.  This was the thirty seat Tasting House suspended up above the floor of the brewery and bottling facility.  I realize that this will mean little to most of you, but I sat and drank with John Maier tonight.

To give you some perspective, drinking with John Maier is in the same ballpark as tossing the pigskin with Dan Marino, swinging some BP with Ken Griffey, Jr., snapping some pics with Ansel Adams, jamming on guitar with Mark Knopfler, or knocking out some sketches with Carl Barks.

I was sitting, having what I consider to be fun, with the human being who does it professionally the best way that it has been done.

John was… well, John was just a guy.  It was obvious that he loved what he did, and had forgotten more about it than anyone else in the room had ever known.  I’ve brewed three batches of beer myself, and I intend to do more once I get home, and I feel like I learned more tonight just chatting with John than I have in three years of reading, brewing with others, and toying around on my own.

I did the geeky thing and got his autograph on a coaster.  Actually, some cool people I met and talked to got the autograph for me before I worked up the courage to actually bug John for it.  I’m looking forward to Labor Day weekend, when I intend to be back in Newport, buying cases of Rogues at the big sale they’re going to have, and talking and drinking with John at his bar/restaurant (there’s a blues act there next weekend he really wants me to see. I think I’d shoot my mother if he really wanted me to [no, Mom, that’s just an expression]).  I’m really enjoying referring to John in the second person familiar, in case you haven’t noticed.

Anyway, I’m really, really drunk right now.  Suzy has already… well, she’s not responding to me at any rate.

Let’s just call it a really good night.