Clam diggers at the Pine Tavern

In the late 1970s, my late soul brother Dick was doing pretty well for himself. He was making money in the mortgage business, lived on a ranch he owned in Bend, Oregon, and seemed to be pretty happy. When I visited, a tradition on days when we could play was to have clam diggers at the Pine Tavern, an institution in Bend, a restaurant/bar with a large pine tree in the middle of the dining room. A clam digger is a Bloody Mary using clamato juice, and I thought of this because I had a glass of clamato this morning, finishing up a bottle I'd purchased for my Thanksgiving aspic. Dick and I had a ton of "drinking traditions," of course, as any drinking buddies do, and the good times far outnumbered the bad times, despite what counselors at treatment centers want you to believe. I have very fond memories of our long mornings talking and sipping clam diggers at the Pine Tavern.