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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels September 17, 2004 Downtown Of skirts and horses: An afternoon in Ashland Andrew Scot Bolsinger Discovering, and rediscovering, Ashland is one of the best things about living here. It can be done in many different ways, experiences or places. A personal favorite of my discovery places, is the front table - affectionately known as "my table" by me and nobody else - in the window along Oak Street at the Standing Stone Brewing Company. After a long week of work, it's the perfect place to unwind (after a drink at Louie's, another pretty cool place to unwind) this Saturday afternoon. My table is open and awaiting us so we can take in all that is Ashland. An Ashland mix Very close by - a two-top encroaches upon the perfection of my table, but you can't have everything you want - a guy is talking too loud on the cellphone as I settle in. We think for just a minute about another table, but the lame idea is dismissed. We order and I put my reticular formation to work drowning out the cellphone talker like white noise from the refrigerator. Soon, a crowd gathers at the doorway, drawing our attention. The large party is preparing to leave the restaurant. They stand along the street and say their goodbyes. Hugs and handshakes all around. What steals our attention is that we recognize many of them. Actors from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Our inside joke is that I never see the actors around town, so today we gawk a bit. Most of the cast of "A Raisin in the Sun" is there, including Crystal Baker, Chris Butler and Mirron E. Willis, along with Kevin Kenerly of "Topdog." Kenerly also played the first Romeo I have ever seen with dreds last year. His counterpart, Juliet, from last year is also there. I like seeing them, not on the stage, but as part of Ashland. Like us. Definitely Ashland. I notice then that Kenerly is wearing a skirt. Not a woman's skirt, but a tribal skirt, of sorts. Somehow, he looks totally cool, which befuddles me. I would look completely ridiculous, I know that. But a good looking guy with dreadlocks and a skirt seems to fit perfectly in Ashland. What doesn't fit so perfectly is the guy on the cellphone. Maybe I am unfairly critical because he's invading my space, but once the OSF gang is gone and my attention wanders, it wanders back to him. Wrap-around sunglasses are perched on his mullet. He's wearing tight jeans with a big belt buckle. Boots, of course. He pays the bill, leaves and climbs into a GMC truck with duel-wheels on it. He revs the gas hard, as his dog hangs its head out the passenger window. He drives away and I notice the Minnesota license plates. He must have fallen down the rabbit hole and landed near my table. Definitely not Ashland. I wonder what he thought of his brief visit. I wonder if he noticed, and liked, Kenerly's skirt. I wonder what he will tell his friends about Ashland. All things Ashland A stream of passersby take up our attention. An older couple wanders in, obviously tourists. A young hippie couple carrying backpacks go by my window. Tourists of a very different kind but no less part of Ashland than the others. And so it goes for a few minutes, back and forth like a tennis match, people wander by, first tourists, then hippies, a few locals mixed in. Each is very distinct and fairly obvious to the casual observer. The volley-like routine is only broken by a horse, ridden by what looks like a real-life cowboy, slowly down Oak Street toward the Plaza. What looks like abstract art on the landscape of downtown Ashland, reveals itself as somehow, oddly, very Ashland. Neither the rider nor the horse are in any hurry. Both are content to take their space in the line of cars scurrying too and fro. Both seem completely disinterested in the busy town around them. Somehow, they look like they belong. Like Kenerly's skirt, nobody but me seems to even notice them. Of course not. It's Ashland. I tell people all the time that they have to come visit Ashland to really understand it. "It's an acquired taste," I warn them. "Like your first beer." How else to explain a place where men wear skirts and ride horses along the same street on the same afternoon? The next day I fuss with my pants while getting ready for a block party we have been invited to attend. They are beach pants, complete with a little tie on the calf that allows me to roll them up ankle high. They are perfect walking along Maui, but may be oddly out of place in this corner of the mountains. But I like 'em rolled up. I weigh the decision carefully. At last, up they go. If a guy can wear a skirt and look cool, and another guy can ride a horse and not cause even a second glance, I should be able to wear beach pants to a block party in the mountains. Of course, nobody even looks at my pants. Definitely, Ashland. Andrew Scot Bolsinger is the editor of the Daly Tidings and author of a novel, "If Pennies Could Talk." Contact him at [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams