Miracle at the Sandy Hut

Yes, miracles still happen. All the time. Even to me. And I have three witnesses: Michael Burnell, Kyle Arthur and the skinny ginger cook with the glasses.

Friday evening I went straight from work to my favorite bar in Portland, hands down. The Sandy Hut. They've taken down the steamed clams sign, but it's still a disgusting little purple bunker with a fabulous jukebox and a great shuffleboard table and that mural on the wall. Has anyone noticed that mural? The bathroom stalls were recently painted over but I have faith that the graffiti will reach its former amplitude. The regulars didn't bat an eye as I cursed at the television and convulsed in my chair while the Blazers lost and I even ate food there for the first time with no ill effect. The game finished and we were applying various layers and getting ready to leave when the cook came in from a smoke break and asked if we had a bike outside. I did. And here's what happened. I had left my bike, unlocked, just sitting there against the bike rack in front of the bar. Just forgot to lock it. Unbelievable. And it hadn't been touched. This was over the time span of three beers, a grilled cheese and tots, two triumphant games of shuffle board and the second non-triumphant half of the Blazers game. Photographic proof:

This totally makes up for the first time I lived in Portland and some methhead stole my seventies road bike in broad daylight while I slaved inside the Doug Fir making fifty horrible pounds of hamburger patties.