By Chuck Woodbury
I had just finished doing an call-in interview with a Columbia, Mo., talk-radio station from a phone booth in Quilcene, Wash. Across the street from the booth was the Whistling Oyster Tavern. I was hungry, so to celebrate the good interview, I walked across the street for a meal. Here is my story:
I must tell you about my lunch at the Whistling Oyster Tavern in Quilcene, Wash. The sign out front said POOL, PUNCHBOARDS & CHICKEN.
I chose a seat at the bar, and ordered fish and chips for $6.25 -- a lot of money, but I was celebrating a successful radio interview, so money was no object.
Two guys were sitting next to me drinking beer. One was in his 20s, the other probably in his 60s. They preferred to drink rather than talk to a stranger in a jackalope tee-shirt, so I walked over to the Black Pyramid pinball machine and deposited a quarter. Two seconds later, bells started ringing and lights started blinking and a silver ball came out of nowhere, ready to be launched into play. I'd need a score of 1.6 million for a free replay, which was intimidating, but I was up to the challenge.
I took a deep breath, then pulled the handle. The silver ball shot up its chute and my game was underway. Even more bells rang and lights flashed as the ball hit one obstacle after another. Still, by the time it rolled below the machine's flippers, I had accumulated a disappointing 50,000 points.
Well, I will not bore you with details of my game, but I will tell you that my second ball was the most successful, earning me an impressive quarter million points. But after that, the game went miserably, and I ended up with a crummy score of 517,820 -- more than a million shy of a free game.
But good news! My lunch was ready.
The bartender/waitress didn't talk much, but as my tummy filled, I became increasingly curious as to how the Whistling Oyster Tavern got its name. "Why is this place called the Whistling Oyster?" I asked my food server. "I don't know," she said, and she walked away.
Does that answer seem unacceptable to you? It did to me. It reminded me of when I was at Miss Piggie's Café in Oregon and asked the waitress if she knew how it got its name, and she didn't know. You'd think, on the first day of work, an employer would tell an employee how a place got its name so when customers asked they'd get an informed answer.
If I worked at the Whistling Oyster and didn't know the answer, I'd at least make one up -- so the tourists could get some satisfaction.
This is the story I'd tell:
I'd say that once, years ago, an old man from town was walking on the nearby beach when he heard a strange whistling sound -- sort of like a sabertooth jackalope singing in the desert night. I'd say the old man listened to the beautiful sound for more than an hour, and it was so captivating he kept searching for its source. Finally, standing at the edge of an oyster bed, he discovered it was coming from a single oyster -- a one-in-a-trillion whistling oyster -- the mollusk equivalent of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Excited, the old man rushed back to Quilcene to tell everybody he knew about the amazing whistling oyster. But nobody would believe him; they said he was hearing things, or that he was making the story up. "You are a crazy old man," one young boy said.
Well, as the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months, and the months to years, the old man nearly went insane because nobody would believe his story! Nobody at all -- not even the town idiot, a guy who went by the name of Batlee Masterson.
Then, more than three years later, while walking by that same bed of oysters, the old man once again heard the beautiful whistling sound. But this time a young couple was nearby, so he went to their campfire to invite them to come hear the whistling oyster themselves. Then, he thought, I will have proof that the whistling oyster really does exist. The young couple said they would join him, but first they had to finish barbecuing their chicken, "Or it will be too raw," the young man explained.
The old man said that would be fine, but before he left them, he pointed to where he would be. They said they would see him there in ten to eleven minutes. "Our chicken is nearly done," said the young man, and the young woman nodded to agree as she basted the baking bird.
The old man then walked slowly toward the oyster bed. And, as he did, the young couple heard an incredibly beautiful whistling sound.
"Did you hear that, Shep?" the young woman asked the young man. "Yes," he answered as he turned a thigh.
Yet, no sooner had they spoken than the sound stopped. The young couple wondered if perhaps they were hearing things. Yet even as they wondered, they watched the old man out of the corner of their eyes.
And then -- to their absolute amazement -- as he reached the edge of the oyster bed, he began to disappear. The young couple rubbed their eyes, thinking perhaps they were seeing things. But what they saw was real! Within a few seconds the old man had completely vanished as if into thin air! And that was the last anybody ever saw of him.
The young couple, visitors to Quilcene but looking for a new life, decided to open a business there, and so they bought a tavern that was listed in the Nifty Nickel Advertiser. The place was called Jill's Topless Bait Shop, which the young couple thought was a terrible name. So they decided to come up with a new one.
"But what will it be?" they asked in unison. Then they laughed. "It's funny we asked the same question at the same time," she said. And they both bent in half because they were laughing so hard.
Two days later, while barbecuing a six-pack of tofu weiners at the beach, the perfect name popped into both their heads at the exact same moment: The Whistling Oyster. Excited, they hugged each other and then watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. Later, they dropped to their knees and wrote the following message in the shifting sand: THE OLD MAN AND ELVIS LIVE! And then almost as an afterthought they added POOL, PUNCHBOARDS & CHICKEN, which they subsequently painted on their sign.
That's the story I'd tell customers about how the Whistling Oyster Tavern got its name.
©1998 by Out West Newspaper
Do you have any commments about this story? Please e-mail Chuck Woodbury.
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