Our day started out by patronizing the legendary local watering hole called Oogies Bar & Grill at 10:00am Saturday morning. We had both saved up our weekly "drunk day" for Saturday in order to be able to take in the full effect of the annual Dunbar Critter Dinner. To our disappointment, we weren't the first customers of the day for Oogies. Two older gents, one guy named Jim, who I believe had simply "slept" there the night before, made us feel very welcome. One of the fellows was the father of one of our high school classmates. Mary, the bartender kept us entertained the entire time that we were there. We promised her that we'd save some grouse meat and bring it to her. We never did.

We decided that 66 ounces of ale each would be "a good start" to our day. Little did we know that that number, multiplied by 4 or 5 would be our final tally of alcoholic beverages for the day (I think??). Then, it was off to the main event.

Upon arrival, we began to notice that this event was to be more geared to the senior citizen set. It seemed that once you reached a certain age in this town, you were considered "exempt" from doing any preparation or for serving or cleaning up after the event was over. At the end of the day, I swear, there were old people fighting over the "leftovers". We witnessed one woman (born just after the planet Mars was discovered) with an entire tray of cornbread in her hands. Fearing that someone else had the thought of taking even one wedge of the delicious treats, she simply dumped the whole tray into the rolled-up front of her shirt, then scurried away.

The majority of our time spent at the event was done outdoors. After all, the inside of the auditorium smelled like a combination of grease and cheap, old-folk perfume. Besides, the "hip" part of the crowd stayed outside near the "cookers". Also, that just happened to be where the adult beverages were being stored. We made sure that we had plenty on hand to give out to the food preparers, making sure that the pieces of unidentified carcass that we were being served weren't of the spleen or pancreas variety. One man, who was manning a large deep fryer, being used to fry whole turkeys, dumped an entire container of the grease, spilling much of it on one of his pant legs. Not knowing what to do for the guy, I yelled "quick, blow on it!!!". After all folks, this grease was a scorching 360 degrees. All ended well for him though, he didn't get burned and was able to continue drinking with the rest of us.

Some of the game served at the event were alligator, a 230 lb. hog, squirrel and squirrel gravy, deer in every variety you could possible find and bear meat. I was too late to get any of the gator meat. I tasted bear meat for the very first AND LAST time. Imagine taking an entire box of weed eater line and placing it in your mouth and trying to chew it up. That's bear meat. I swear, I chewed on that stuff for about 10 minutes, became tired of it, threw it on the ground, a dog came by, started chewing on it, chewed it for about 5 more minutes and spit it out. It'll probably still be there next February. I asked one of the servers if the had any human ass cheek. He found absolutely no humor in my comment, dumped squirrel gravy on my plate and said nothing. My reporting partner did not partake in any of the gamey delicacies and is probably one reason his stool was solid on Sunday and mine wasn't.

T-shirts were being sold for the event at $5 each and were going like cocaine at David Crosby's house. It was announced at the end of the event that there were over 500 attendees, several of them alive. There'll probably be one or two less next year. I think my partner and I will just stay at Oogies all day next year.

Anyway, it was an experience that I'll certainly never duplicate again in my lifetime. Hope you folks enjoy the pics. Some of them just could be incriminating evidence.

Actually the name on my badge was Steve Wilkerson, condom wearer. If not for the alcohol, the Critter Dinner was pretty much like a Last Supper for the geriatric set. Maybe they were raised on this shit and were reliving the good times, I don’t know.

It’s true, I didn’t partake in much game eating, though I did manage to swallow a piece of bear meat. I fully expect it to lodge in my small intestine and fester for weeks finally causing me to experience an “American Pie” crap in some public forum.

At around midnight, I met back up with Mitch at Oogies. But something happened prior to this that is noteworthy. While at another bar, I managed to talk some chick into flashing me (sorry, no photo). Must have been my smooth talking style after consuming twenty beers, but it could have been that she was some psycho with freshly bandaged wrists from some botched suicide attempt. She wanted a ride back home to Rand, WV. I told her some people just leaving the bar mentioned they were headed to Rand. She said, “No way.” I said, “Yes.” She left.

Meanwhile, Mitch and I managed to close down Oogies, then went to another bar where (I am told) I displayed my pool shooting skills. Why the hell they play pool with three cue balls is beyond me.

To the photos! >>