Odd Fellows

Back in the day, and I'm talking WAY back in the day here, my friend Keith's parents had a house in the small gold rush era boom town of Dutch Flat. It looks like a little new england town tucked away ... in the sierra foothills! We ended up spending a lot of time in Dutch Flat and eventually Alta when my parents bought the little chunk of land that Chloe and I got to most weekends now. There were all kinds of things to do in Dutch Flat: walk to the swimming hole (now surrounded by a chain link fence), head up to Salmon lake, walk down to the American river and on and on. Culturally, there were really two main events, and these were: the July 4th parade.

(From the left: Me, Leighton, Keith, Trevor)
and the Oddfellows breakfast. The latter was a prix fixe breakfast of coffee, eggs, bacon and pancakes and was an excellent deal at the time. I never saw it advertised in the years since, so I just assumed that it wasn't being done anymore. This was more than twenty years ago, and the people running it didn't exactly seem sprightly at the time.

It was therefore very very exciting to hear from Gail that they were still doing the breakfast, and one was being offered today! Despite having a cooler full of eggs and bacon, there was no question of our going. We got there around eight fifteen, and it was like time had stood still for twenty years. It was *exactly* the same scene



And still a great deal at $4 for eggs, bacon or sausage and pancakes. The strongest memory that I have of the oddfellows breakfast was that the bacon tasted really good. It still tastes very good, and the secret ingredient appears to be to deep fry the bacon after its cooked. Not on the "heart-smart"spectrum of foods, but pretty tasty.



My friend Paul from Williams drove all the was up from SF to check out Alta and met us at the Oddfellows. He had his amazingly well behaved dog, Mason with him and after showing him around the property a little, we all walked down to the Bear river via the PG&E trail. It was a beautiful day and Paul and I reminisced about college exploits which would probably land us in jail these days. After lunch back at the cabin, Paul, Gail and Kenji all left and I got back to work on the roof and finished one side:


The other side is going to be trickier: it's a lot dirtier, and there's a chimney with flashing to deal with.