The Coffee Break

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I come from a large extended family. My mother was one of ten children. I was one of twenty-nine grandchildren. I was sort of leading the bottom third of that group age-wise. 

We were a relatively successful bunch for a group of grandchildren of a farm family rooted in the narrow Catching Creek valley out of Myrtle Point. My oldest cousin had a Ph.D. from Cornell and worked for IBM in the early days of computer production. He ultimately became the Dean of Engineering at San Jose State University. He was sixteen years my senior.

There were many teachers in the group and a scattering of professionals. Most importantly, there were a few storytellers. Not authors, just storytellers. You know, the ones who could hold the entire group’s attention for a few minutes as they would weave their tale.

My favorite was Bill Davenport. Bill was probably twelve years older than me. He was in the Army just after the Korean War and spent a tour with the occupation forces in Europe.

One of his stories often told was of his train ride across the country as he was on his way to Europe. His mother had made him two tuna fish sandwiches for the trip. The train ride took several days, and on a private’s pay, he couldn’t afford any of the food on the train. He damn near starved before he reached Boston.

He talked of the fishing season on Catching Creek starting when the fish started biting. And the limit was when you got tired of catching fish. 

But my favorite story, often told during our annual family gathering for the fourth of July at the Davenport Grove, located on the home ranch on Catching Creek, was The Coffee Break.

After he was out of the Army and married, Bill started with the Oregon State Police. His initial station, which he called his internship, was at Gold Beach, Oregon. Located on the southern Oregon Coast at the mouth of the Rouge River.

In the mid-1950s, Gold Beach was a sleepy little coastal town. There were some loggers, fishermen, and a few prospectors, but not much else. It was a pretty quiet place to start learning the ropes of a state trooper.

But there was a bank robbery in Myrtle Point one afternoon, and the robber escaped out of town on the back roads through Arago and across Lampa Mountain to Bandon, where he started down the coast.

The State Police in Gold Beach set up a roadblock. Bill was not involved in the roadblock. He was probably too green. There was a shootout, and the bank robber was shot and killed.

The law required that the coroner examine the body. The nearest coroner was in Coos Bay, a two-hour drive on the crooked coastal highway in 1950.

They called the coroner, and he was busy. He told them to bring the body to Coos Bay in the morning, and he would take care of it. Bill and another young trooper were assigned to take the body to Coos Bay.

So, in the morning, they loaded the guy into the back of the pickup and threw a tarp over him. Then, they started out of Coos Bay.

Langlois, a small community with a little more than a wide spot in the road, was about halfway to Coos Bay. They stopped at a little cafe to take a coffee break.

The cafe was full of their morning coffee crowd, and the news of the shootout with the bank robber was the talk of the town that morning. There hadn’t been that kind of excitement on the south coast for a long time.

It didn’t take long, and the crowd asked these two young state cops if they had been in the gunfight.

“No,” Bill said. “We are just taking the guy to the coroner in Coos Bay.”

“You have him out in that truck?” one of the coffee drinkers asked.

“Yeah, we have him in the back of the truck,” Bill said.

One thing led to another, and you have to remember this was mid-1950 in southwestern Oregon, but the cafe soon emptied. Everyone stood around the pickup as Bill pulled the tarp off this dead guy. Quite a show and tell.

After that, they completed the trip to Coos Bay. There was no fallout from the event. Bill retired as a major in the State Police in charge of the Portland District. He has been dead now for nearly ten years. He is missed by many in the family. And I, for one, really miss his many stories.