Doc and the Bimbo Posts

In May, Judy and I visit Schreiner’s Iris farm near Keizer, OR.  The principal reason we do this is that Judy’s brother John is an iris fanatic and no, he is not gay, even though he spent 23 years in the Navy on ships at sea surrounded by hundreds of young men far away from home for the first time.

I am going to stop right here and tell you that I am not homophobic.  I think that being gay is simply fine.  I am in favor of gay marriage. They should have to suffer just like the rest of us.  I am also in favor of gays adopting children, gays teaching our children, gay cops, and gays in foxholes.  I am not intimidated by gays, have gay friends and gay colleagues.  I just don’t want to know what they do in their bedrooms as that is just too fucking weird!  In writing this I have hopefully defused any backlash from the gay community about how anybody involved with growing flowers must be gay, even though it helps.  Having set the record straight on this and once again clearly stating my lack of prejudice toward faggots, I will get back to the iris story.  

The Schreiner’s, no relation to the people who wear the funny hats, established their farm in 1924 and have been growing iris on 250 acres of land ever since.  As I sit outside, writing this we are camped in the Schreiner’s back parking lot surrounded on three sides by hundreds of thousands of irises.  For not only have the Schreiner’s been growing iris, but they have also been manipulating the genetics of these plants to produce a stunning variety of colors, shapes, heights and even smells.  They even have one that smells like grape Kool-aid.  Once these new varieties breed true for three years, they put them up for sale at $50 a bulb and give them a descriptive name like Wild Irish Rose, War Chief, Willamette Mist, and Baboon’s Bottom.  So as not to spoil your dinner I will not describe that variety.  There are blue iris with yellow tongues (beards), two-toned iris with purple lower petals  (falls) and orange upper petals (standards), iris that bloom twice a year, some with frilly petals, some with mottled petals (placata), and some with falls that look like the varicose veins on an eighty year old woman’s legs who had a dozen kids.  Needless to say, the Schreiner’s seem to have had a lot of time on their hands, cross- breeding and naming a gazzilion varieties of iris.  After a few years the price comes down to a more affordable 7.50 to 15 dollars a bulb or more properly a rhizome, unless the iris wins the Dikes award (no shit!), which keeps the price inflated for a few extra years. 

Like I said Judy’s non-gay brother lives with his third wife, Sara, in northern Washington in a wonderful Victorian house on two acres.  Here they have planted thousands and thousands of irises of 800+ varieties.  This year he is down in Oregon once again to purchase about 80 more.  Although I think the owners of the garden are nice people, this is probably why we get to camp for free in their back-parking lot. John and Sara spend hours intensely studying iris catalogs then photograph every new variety they find in the display gardens, even though the catalog has professionally taken photos of the same kinds.  But they are not the only ones doing this in the display gardens as Judy is there also.  We might buy three.  I do have a water iris which grows in my fishpond.  Not really much of a pond as it is in a little sun porch we built on the side of our house and there was only room for a 100 gal plastic stock tank with a double water fall flowing out of two 30 gal whisky barrels.  We put some goldfish and koi in the stock tank with a couple of water plants, one of which is the above-mentioned water iris.  Our water iris has unusually long leaves that reach up over six feet then hang down over the rafters an additional two feet.  There is not much light in my pond so the damn thing has only bloomed once and the single yellow bloom was up in the rafters so that you had to get on your hands and knees, crawl out on the side of the stock tank and look up to see it unless you wanted to go for a dip which I inadvertently did trying to check it out.  Scared the hell out of myself and the fish in the process. 

Now I think iris are fine as flowers go.  In our little flower garden, they are planted next to the fence on a raised bed behind the dahlias.  They seem to do well, blooming in May and early June, before the dahlias grow up and hide them in mid-July.  Unlike John we only have a dozen varieties.  Judy would have more if we had more room, money, and I would allow her to buy Baboon’s Bottom.  Apparently, she has a strange fetish for ape asses. 

Last year she did buy the one that smelled like grape Kool-aid, but she gave it to her non-gay bother after I got the giggles.  I also refuse to let her buy a black iris.  Not that I have anything against the color, I think it looks fine on cars, wood stoves, and Halle Berry, it’s just that a black iris from a distance looks like a bat.  A big, pointy toothed, black shiny bat that is resting motionless on a green stalk, pretending to be flower.  There it waits for some unsuspecting iris lover to walk by with a camera.  And then just as they turn their backs and expose their vulnerable neck to take a picture of Sultans Pride or Gnu Feces, it sinks its yellow teeth into their jugular.  OK, so I am exaggerating a bit.  But they do have a particularly nasty looking black iris named Dracula.

John, Sara, and Judy do enjoy the irises and I tag along behind them nodding my head as they ooh and aah at the blooms and mark which ones they are going to buy in the catalog.  Judy keeps trying to get me to show some interest in them beyond the head nod but to no avail.  The garden does have a really nice hot dog stand which keeps some of my interest up, but I can only eat a few of these and they do not have beer on tap.  After an appropriate bit of  iris nodding I pretend to get really tired, a ploy I have been using for a few years now since being diagnosed with a mild heart condition and am able to excuse myself to go back to the RV for a little nap, which I might take after a cigar and a couple of scotches.  The rest of the crew will keep oo-ing and ah-ing till dark and sometimes till after dark looking and smelling the flowers by flashlight and even bic lighter (I am not making that up either).  All this time John is with Sara who is carrying their wiener dog, Parker Jane, in a belly pack under her sweatshirt.  When they first drove in I actually thought Sara was pregnant till the little nipper stuck out its head from between her hooters.  Some dogs sure are lucky.  I almost told Sara that in my next life I wanted to be reincarnated as a wiener dog but thought better of it.

Finally, they came back to the RV and we sat under the awning talking about Yaquina Blue, Blue Suede Shoes and Acne Zit Sucker over dinner and a couple of bottles of wine.  The mood is finally broken as the sounds of a bad mariachi band wafts in from a half a mile away across the iris field.  They are having quite a party from the pressure wave of the base line that even from that distance reminds me of a migraine.  Judy wonders if it is a wedding that they are celebrating.  I pray that this is not the case as the baby will likely be born deaf.  The party goes on till the wee hours of the morning, but with a few glasses of wine and a lot more scotch I manage to sleep through most of it.

John is up early the next day as one of the Schreiners is going to show him how to hybridize iris.  He comes back an hour or so later really excited about showing the rest of us what he has learned.  Apparently, irises are so large that insects, with the exception of giant bumble bees, cannot pollinate them.  This must be significant as John just gushes with that fact.

“You do not have to bag them after insemination”!  

All sorts of kinky images come to mind after John made that statement, but I wisely kept them to myself.  John invites me out into the seed beds to show me just exactly what he means.  Being not exactly sure where this is leading, I ask Judy and Sara to come along.   John then takes the anther (i.e. penis) out of a flower and gently strokes the pistil (i.e vagina) of the flower depositing a few grains of pollen (i.e. sperm).  If successful in a few days, the flowers pistil (uterus) begins to enlarge. This is fascinating stuff as irises apparently do not need foreplay and require a third party, in this case John, to complete the sex act.  Sort of like a botanical ménage á trois.  You know, maybe this iris stuff is not so bad after all. 

Eventually seeds are produced which are planted in the fertile soil producing seedlings which then grow up in the seedling beds.  After a couple of years these seedlings bloom, producing different iris depending on which variety was the sire and which the bitch.  Each of these offspring are slightly different due to the genetic variation inherent in the plants.  The Schreiners then choose ones they like and mark them with a little yellow flag.  The rest are dug up and discarded on the compost pile which reminded me of my senior prom in high school, but that is another story.  Once the lucky ones are selected, they are allowed to reproduce asexually (what is the fun in that) till there are enough to sell.  This requires about 200 rhizomes and may take as long as ten years.  This whole process obviously requires skill, patience, and dozens of illegal aliens to tend the beds and beat off the giant bumble bees. 

We wander through the seed beds, looking at all the new and unnamed varieties, with Sara taking countless pictures of these new iris types making sure that the seedling number designation tag is in each and every photo for later ID.  Just as I think I am about to have another exhaustion episode; I see an iris. 

It is pale blue with deep mauve beards.  The standards are frilled, lace like and translucent.  I stand there transfixed in its beauty, hardly daring to breathe as I fear subconsciously it might evaporate.  Judy sees the look on my face, touches my arm and asks

“Are you okay?” 

I reluctantly turn my face to her and barely whisper “That is the most translucent and delicately beautiful flower I have ever seen in my life.”

There is a moment of awed silence.  Then I hear John snort behind me as he has witnessed and, far worse, over-heard. 

“Iris made you cream your pants huh” he chortles then snorts “Delicately beautiful”!   

Like a tail gunner who jumped out of burning B-17 at 30,000 feet without a parachute I am doomed, and I will have a long-long time to think about it.  For the rest of that day “delicate” and “translucent” became overly used adjectives in John’s vocabulary.  I truly dread Judy’s family reunion this fall.  I will never hear the end of this as John, the gay mother fucker,  will tell every one of my momentary fox paws (the French have an alternative and gay spell of this). The defining moment of my life has happened and no matter how many scientific papers I write, honors I receive, even if it is the Nobel Peace Prize, I will always be remembered as the probably gay guy who got a woody over a delicate and frilly iris.  If you fuck one goat…… 

After considerable soul searching, Judy and I decided to give up on having family over for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. With heavy hearts we were prepared to have our feast at home with just the two of us, our golden, Kaylee, the beast of a cat who shall not be named.   The risk this year is just too great.  Who knows what Trump is going to do in the next two months?

Then Judy had an epiphany, which surprisingly is not a recently discovered symptom of Covid-19.  What was stopping us from packing up the turkey, giblets, and cranberry sauce, and go camping at a State or County park with an ocean view?  We never get to go camping on the beach in the summer as is nearly impossible to get a site.  Californians book the State Parks with ocean view a year in advance.  I supposed I could have done the same thing, but being retired and 72, I am lucky if I remember what I promised Judy I would do a half hour ago.  But this was the off season.  It was cold and Californians are allergic to rain.  It was also Thanksgiving.  Who the fuck goes camping on Thanksgiving?   Wow!  We were going to have a gourmet feast, then toast the waves rolling up on an empty beach with our favorite adult beverages.  I might even sit outside by a campfire and smoke a cigar unless the wind blew it out and dusted my face with hot ashes.  It almost made me get a woody, which sadly is not a recently discovered symptom of Covid-19 as I would forgo the vaccine just on off chance …

Excitably, we searched for a State or County park with a great view and within a couple of hours of our home.  Our only requirement was we needed to have electricity as a day or two of running our RV furnace runs the batteries down to zip and the campout is over.  Although there are two State Parks close to our house, it is embarrassing to camp within 15 minutes of home, the campground hosts tend to look at you funny.   Also we like to feel like we are roughing it and if we are too close to home we tend to drive back to the house rather than go without. 

We know of several parks to the south of us that meet our criteria: ocean view, electricity, and close enough to shopping in case we forgot something but far enough away from home so that we would not be tempted to drive back to the house. Also, commercial RV parks are out.  They pack you in tighter than a virgin and I occasionally like to walk around in the buff and do not appreciate the laugh track.

After two hours on the phone to Reserve America and to various county parks to the south of us, we began to get desperate.  Great minds think alike. Who the fuck goes camping during Thanksgiving?  Apparently in the time of Covid, everybody does.  Eventually we had to give up on the ocean view parks and found a nice State Park in the woods on the wrong side of the Pacific Highway.  Our long-time friends, Martha and Bill thought that they would like to go with us. They had recently purchased a pickup camper and there was a site right next to us.  No this was not a super spreader event.  If anybody is more careful than us, its these two.  I have known Sonny (Bill) since we were both students at Oregon State University (may Earthquake Enyart rest in peace).  Bill was such a good friend that he would even take Marty off Judy’s hands occasionally, just to give her a little break.  What a nice guy.  It was only years later that we found out that pushing an infant around in a baby buggy was a great way to meet girls.  The dirty bastard!  Lucky for him he married Martha, or I might never have never forgiven him for keeping that great idea to himself.

 After setting up our trailer, we hopped in the truck to drive back to Reedsport, OR to get a few items we had left at home.  Might have been able to skip the milk and eggs, but a single malt, oh hell no.  But  first, we made a quick stop at an oyster farm to get some steamer clams.  Every once in while I get a boner for steamer clams, sautéed in a little wine sauce with bay leaves, then dipped into garlic butter.  A little French bread dipped into the still warm cooking juice and eaten dripping on your shirt with a little wine completes the meal.  By the way, food slop and wine stains is the Boese family crest.  Only problem was the oyster farm was closed due to a fire. Surely Reedsport would have a fresh seafood place.  Nope. But after three stores I found frozen streamers.  A little dubious, I asked the guy behind the meat counter if they were any good.  “Sure are, eat them myself”.  Bet he did it only once.  There is no such thing as an honest, waitress, mechanic, car salesman, nor grocery store employee.  It’s always freshly baked that morning, right off the boat, or only driven by a little old lady to her Sunday School Class.   The clam meats were half the size they were supposed to be and tasted like rabbit poops.  It even ruined the cooking juice. When will I ever learn?  I have often heard that the older you get the wiser you are.  I just seem to get older.   

Our friends showed up a few days later.  We put together a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, stuffing, mashed taters, gravy, garlic green beans, Judy’s famous maple syrup carrots, and Martha’s fabulous deep-dish apple pie with scoops of organic vanilla ice cream.  What the fuck is organic ice cream? The turkey was deep fried.  Never did that one before.  Even bought a giant electric deep fat fryer.  Decided to go electric rather than the propane powered ones after watching one of those safety u-tube turkey fryer videos.  I could just see my tombstone, Bruce Boese, 1947 – 2020, survives three car wreaks, a heart problem, a Covid-19 epidemic, only to screw up while deep frying as 14-pound turkey.  Judy read the instructions as it is against the man club manifesto to ever read a manual.  I poured in the peanut oil and when it reached the right temperature, then gently lowered the bird into the hot oil.   Wow, I am sure glad I bought the electric fryer as it sure is safer than the gas one.  Oil didn’t bubble like the gates of hell when the turkey went in.  Could it really be that different from the gas fryers.  Quickly, while no one was looking I glanced at the instructions.  Yet 165 degrees was right, then it dawned on my pea brain that 165 was the temperature of the meat when it was done.  The oil needed to be preheated to 375.  I quickly pulled the turkey out, reset the deep frier to 375, and filed that Judy screw up away for later redemption.  I had just been given a chip in the big game.  To quote the greatest philosopher of all time, “You got to know how to hold em”.   So, the dinner was postponed a hour, everything turned out just as well and it gave me more time to drink before eating.

Next day all of us drove a few miles south to see Shore Acres State Park and Cape Arago.  Shore Acres was originally the home of Louis J. Simpson, a lumber baron and son of a shipping magnet who inherited then hit it big during the hay day of timber in Coos County Oregon.  As was common in those robber baron times, he built a huge mansion overlooking one of the most stunning views in the world, where waves thunderously smash against a hundred food rock cliff not 20 yards from his back door. Included in this 745 acre estate,  he made his wife a formal English garden,   But like almost all of ilk, the house burned down and his trophy wife took him for his last dime, forcing him in 1942 to sell the land to the State of Oregon.  The garden survives to this day.  For a modest fee you can stroll through it.  But not on the day after Thanksgiving in 2020. Covid strikes again as Coos County did not meet level two of three or one.  What ever the gate was locked.

Cape Agago  State Park is a few minutes south by narrow two lane.  Part way there is a haul out spot for California sea lions.  Sea lions migrate south during the fall to their winter condos. Guess they are allergic to rain.  Occasionally they need to stop or haul out to lay in the sun and renew their tans.  In October of each year you can hear them for miles, sounding like a beer hall full of old geezers telling off color jokes while gawking at nubile bar maids in skimpy attire.  Could this haul out spot have been what inspired the founder of Hooters?  Just a thought.  Every time, I have been to Cape Arago I have seen Grey Whales.  Every time.  Never failed. Told Martha and Sonny to bring their cameras.  Yep Guaranteed. Nope not today.  I was striking out as bad mighty Casey did in Mudville.  Only one chance to salvage the day.  A hail Mary at the Seven Devils. I had never actually seen the Seven Devils.  I had been there a few years before but had never seen them as the whole area was hidden by a thick curtain of fog. In the swirling mist I thought I could about see gigantic ocean swells breaking over these seven rock crags and exploding around them like the horns of Satan himself.  I entered Seven Devils in my Garmin navigator.  We followed it till we found Seven Devils Road.  The Garmin wanted us to go further south, but Seven Devils Road would lead us to it and it was right there.  Beside Garmin’s are not infallible.  A San Francisco family had followed its instructions from Roseburg to Coos Bay a few years back and ended up stranded in the snow, out of gas on a forest service road, where they survived by burning the tires off their car.  The tires on my truck are 200 a piece, fuck that.  Only took us an extra hour to get there down a one lane dirt road with ruts, washboards and scary looking misspelled “no trespassing or git shot signs”.  Finally, the road became paved and sign said “Seven Devils State Recreation Area” one half mile.  I nearly wet myself as we pulled into the parking lot.  There in the no foggy distance was…  a single rock, lamely being covered by every piddly wave that washed over it.   The sign at the path to the plain sand beach stated why it was called the Seven Devils.  Martha and Judy read it to me, women always read the signs, but I could take no more.  Seven Devils was named after the road we had driven to get to the beach. Ashamed I lamely crawled back in the truck, drove back to the trailer to eat left-overs.  Next year we stay home.