Playing with Matches
I am at a brewery that sits above a river with a view of the mountains and the vast playground that encircles my home town of Bend. The forest stretches for miles … and with one strike of a match, one flick of a lit cigarette, this entire area could be smoldering ashes. I never worry about my house … if my house burns down, I won’t want to live here anyway. Not because the house is that particularly relevant in my life, but because everything around it will be gone. Most notable would be the tall ponderosa trees in the park across the street with the great horned owls, the ospreys, the raccoons …
I am always sad when we lose parts of our forest, I know these roads not by number or name, but by texture, steepness, changes in ecosystems that define elevation and location. I could easily win the Jeopardy game with an Oregon Roads categor: they would show me photos of an area and I would guess at least the area, maybe even the gravel route. I would bet my entire winnings, walk away with a fortune.
Oregon is special; the mountains that run through the western part of the state have such an impact … they reach high in the sky and grab the rain, like a goalie in a soccer match. But, sometimes the rain victoriously slides past the mountains and drenches the eastern part of the state. . This difference mean part of the state is covered in huge trees dripping in moss, while the other half of the state depends on the failure of the goalie.
At the brewery, I watch the World Cup: the US vs. Turkey. The crowd is smaller than I would expect, but the US has already secured their slot in the next series of matches. And Turkey has already secured their slot on the next flight home. The game is tied, 2 to 2 and the announcer continues to use Turkey-ya … which causes a conversation next to me with some very drunk USA fans who share my table.
“It’s Turkey, you fucking moron, why can’t they just call it Turkey You idiots, you turkeys.” he yells as he begins to flap his wings. I decide to not jump into the conversation but a woman in his group decides to take up the charge,
“Maybe it’s Turkey-ya because they got a new king, maybe a regime change. I mean you know how unstable THAT part of the world is … “ she says.
The man continues to do his chicken dance trying to recruit more people. “Ba-ba– ba— ba.” he screams.
It’s then that I begin to cheer for Türkiye with the final few seconds on the clock Türkiye scores, breaks the tie and wins the game. Nobody in this crowd cheers, but rather the people begin to pack up to leave. The beer drinking man has stopped his bird dance and returns to guzzling beer, more rapidly than before because he “doesn’t want to waste it.”
I am pleased with the outcome of the game: the Americans still advance, the team from Türkiye goes home with regained pride.
And so the World Cup rolls along to the next stage. The advancing teams will be playing with matches in their next games. The question becomes will the Americans sneak through the summer, through all of their matches, without burning down? …. And the more important question: will my town of Bend be able to do the same?
