I’ve been going to Tommy’s almost every Monday night during football season for about five years. Yep, I’m part of the group that’s always playing gin rummy.

It’s to the point where I sometimes show up at the bar and my drink (a Sierra Mist on the rocks, no chaser) will show up in front of me before I say a word to the wait staff.

Then half the time when I’d order food, I’d get some gentle ribbing about my usual reuben sandwich, no kraut. What can I say? Reliable works for me.

And that’s what Tommy’s was. It was good and nice and reliable, like an old friend or something.

Needless to say, it was weird having to interview Bill, who obviously was devastated by the blaze. It was a rough assignment, perhaps made a little bit easier — and a little bit more difficult — because I knew the source. Bill talked to me, and he might not for somebody else, but, damn, not easy to keep the eyes from misting up a bit, y’know?

Plenty of people stopped by to console Bill, and plenty of people were trying to give him encouragement to reopen the joint.

It will take time. Who knows if it will even be in the same location. But the patrons there, including me, well, we had a good thing going with Tommy’s.

At 10 a.m. Monday morning, some of the regulars were already thinking about what they could do as a fundraiser.

That’s the type of joint Tommy’s is — and probably will be again.

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But here’s where the weird get weirder, in a truly Corvallis sort of way. Knapp’s fondness of the First Alternative Co-op may be used as evidence against him.

Ah, the Co-op, the gourmet/granola place where you can get all sorts of healthy and delicious food items. The place where Knapp had unsuccessfully run for a position on the board of directors, according to court paperwork. The place where, approximately six weeks ago, Knapp had applied for employment.

Well, two phone numbers used to call in on fraudulent credit cards were registered to the First Alternative Co-op, according to the criminal complaint against Knapp. An employee said a phone was registered to the store and it was for customer use.

The calls were placed on April 18 at 7:47 p.m. and on May 2 at 3:22 p.m.

Mark Knapp made purchases at the Co-op, and used his customer number during these, at 8:11 p.m. April 18 and at 3:14 p.m. May 2.

Also, a First Alternative worker was the person so familiar with Knapp that she was able to identify him in a bank surveillance video — even though the suspect’s face was mostly covered — based on his distinctive gold-rimmed glasses, eyes and nose.

On another note, Knapp apparently wasn’t too careful when his cat needed veterinary help.

On Feb. 25, a charge for $87.85 was made to Willamette Veterinary Clinic with a fraudulent credit card. It was for “Pippy,” Knapp’s cat. The clinic was able to provide surveillance video of the transaction and Knapp was captured on the images, according to the criminal complaint against him.

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And I was grumbling a little bit beforehand about reporting on the event.

I honestly expected an overly evangelical group, based on what I’ve seen in movies and such about Hare Krishnas. The folks at Adams Elementary School, however, couldn’t have been more cool.

They simply talked about what they believed.

Plus, they were super nice and sent photographer Andy Cripe and me home with some vaaary tasty vegetarian food.

All in all, I’d recommend going to this event next year, even for whitebread Corvallis folks. It’s like taking a trip to a foreign land, and it will definitely be educational and fun.

On another note, it will be interesting to see how many negative posts turn up on the article regarding the Hare Krishnas. Anytime we write about religion for a regular A section story, it seems like somebody gets angered about the coverage. People can get touchy about the subject, especially when their views aren’t contained in a story on religion.

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I was kind of confused about why they’d send a news release out about that, since, well, don’t they already do that every day? You blow over .08, you’re getting booked, right? Am I wrong on this?

Hidden in the news release was a line about how some deputies would get overtime to do DUII patrols through a grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That’s probably the real news here.

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An Albany-area man died and two others were seriously injured Wednesday morning in a two vehicle head-on crash on Highway 20 about two miles east of Eddyville.  Oregon State Police (OSP) troopers are continuing the investigation.

According to OSP Sergeant Justin McGladrey, on August 12, 2009 at approximately 8:10 a.m. a 2006 Saab sedan driven by EDWARD RANDOLPH JOHNSTON, age 62, from Salem, was eastbound on Highway 20 near milepost 26 when it attempted to pass another vehicle using the westbound lane.  A westbound red 2008 Honda Civic driven by JOSEPH OLIVER ERNST, age 26, from Albany, first reportedly moved toward the eastbound lane to avoid the oncoming Saab and then steered back into the westbound lane where the vehicles collided head-on.  After impact, the Honda came partially to rest on top of a concrete side barrier on a bridge over a creek.

ERNST was pronounced deceased at the scene.  He was using safety restraints and the car’s airbags deployed.

The Honda’s passenger, GREGORY JAY HIGGINS, age 17, from Crabtree, Oregon was seriously injured and transported by Pac West ambulance to Good Samaritan Medical Center in Corvallis.  HIGGINS, who was the victim’s stepbrother, was using safety restraints.

JOHNSTON was seriously injured and transported by air ambulance to Good Samaritan Medical Center in Corvallis.  He was using safety restraints and his car’s airbags deployed.

OSP troopers from the Newport Area Command office are continuing the investigation.  Lincoln County District Attorney’s Office, Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and members of the Lincoln Multi-Agency Traffic Crash Team are assisting.  Local fire personnel and ODOT were on scene and a detour was set up around the area until the highway was re-opened about noon.

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And just note, when police say suspicious death, that doesn’t necessarily mean that a crime has happened. But yes, a crime may have happened and police are investigating the death.

Here it is.

Police investigating suspicious death
Law enforcement agencies are investigating a suspicious death on Janssen Street, near where it meets with Circle Boulevard.
The name of the elderly woman who died is not being released at this time, because her family has not been located, said Capt. Jon Sassaman of the Corvallis Police Department, which is the lead agency on the case.
Sassaman declined to release much information on the case, citing the need to take a careful approach with the pending investigation.
Benton County’s Major Crimes Team was methodically going through the scene, Sassaman said, including detectives from Corvallis police and the Benton County Sheriff’s Office and Oregon State Police crime lab workers.
Several police cars were in the area for hours starting Sunday afternoon, said neighbors at a nearby apartment complex. At about 5 p.m., there were six police vehicles at the scene.

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The club’s summer day camp was supposed to go to the Oregon Zoo up in Portland, but with temperatures soaring above 100, that wasn’t the smartest idea for a field trip.

“We were really concerned with the kids being outside in this weather,” said Sandy Nored, school age care director for the club.

Also, if the kids didn’t get heat stroke, they’d probably be bored stiff since most of the cool animals — lions, tigers, and such — would be seeking shade and napping to beat the heat.

Instead, the club took a local field trip to spots with AC. About 30 kids went bowling in the morning and headed to the Carmike to catch a movie in the afternoon.

The film was fitting, seeing as the campers were beating the heat in a theater; they saw “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.”

It even sounds cool.

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I first heard about Levis Pizer through Mark Hazelton, the boss man at Kings Valley Charter School. While I was doing a story about a new modular building at the school, he happened to mention that there would be a potluck reunion there soon, and passed along Levis’ phone number.

I figured I would just write a brief about the event and be done with it. But when I called Levis up, I discovered that she was the unofficial historian of the old Kings Valley High School. And her meticulous scrapbooks also had plenty of great stuff about the Kings Valley-Hoskins area.

I’m probably going to call and make sure Mary Gallagher, at the Benton County Historical Museum, knows about Levis and her collections, which include plenty of mementos about Summit, where she lived for years. She’s also writing down her life history. Anyway…

An interesting tidbit that didn’t make it into the story is that, when she was a girl, Levis Kopplien lived on the land that is now Fort Hoskins Park. The school that used to be on the park land already had closed, and Levis attended elementary grades at the Alder Grove School, about five miles west of Fort Hoskins.

It was neat to talk with her about all the small schools out in the rural areas, as well as the small stores. Levis’ mother worked at the store in Hoskins proper, and there were pictures of soldiers with local ties on display there during World War II. Because of her mother, Levis ended up getting the photos, but she knew all of the soldiers, including one sailor who was killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Her high school principal even ended up going into the Armed Forces.

“I think I probably wrote to 30 to 35 servicemen during the war,” Levis said. “A lot of the local guys didn’t have family who would write to them. They wee just happy to get a letter. A lot of them would send me things from overseas or bring me home something.”

And it’s not like she had much better to do. Her family had no gas to get anyplace because of rationing, she had no television, and after she graduated, she had plenty of down time working at the railroad office in Hoskins.

Her husband, Dallas, was a soldier, too, though not a local boy. She met him when he came home on leave. Dallas’ father had moved into the area to work at the railroad. Levis met Dallas while he was changing a flat tire, which, probably wasn’t the best circumstances. But things kind of evolved from there, and picked up steam after Dallas’ dad died.

They were married in January of 1946. Dallas died in April, 2008.

While Levis thought a new high school would be great for the community, she wondered how many students there would actually be from Kings Valley and the surrounding area.

In 1945, when Kings Valley High School shut its doors, local kids were angry that they had to go into the big school of Philomath. There was a lot of local pride.

On a final note, there’s an interesting new Web site developing about the Kings Valley-Hoskins area. It appears to still be in its infancy, but who knows how big it could grow. Regardless, check it out.

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And some people thought the Kinetic Challenge was a bizarre idea.

The idea for focusing on the bog, and not race itself, didn’t come from a news release, schedule or official source. Photographer Andy Cripe had been to the event a couple times, and mentioned how the kids would get muddy as can be, and that the bog was kind of an event within the event. Yep, sometimes it’s smart to listen to those shutter roaches.

I talked to a lot of kids there, and, of course, I probably disappointed more than a few because their quotes didn’t make the paper. They all gave nice quotes, it’s just that, man, the ones that we used for the article were stellar.

Jack Bowker (that’s him on the left) might as well have been the king of the mud people. He was covered from head to toe, and so muddy that he was actually shivering, despite it being about 90 degrees outside. Mud, after all, cools people down, and some of the kids mentioned that it was a neat way to beat the heat.

Anyway, as Jack walked to get sprayed off, people in the crowd laughed and oooohed and aaaaahed at this strange creature walking past them. Funny stuff, especially how he had to hold is shorts up to keep them from falling off. Mud was weighing them down too much. Other interesting note was that with the suction the mud created, kids couldn’t run. They had to kind of stomp around.

The sculptures, of course, were neat to see, but I think my favorite was the Hippypotamus, a psychedelic zoo animal that was crazy as can be. The “Alice in Wonderland” inspired Mad Katter also was a great theme.

Talked with the people of “Plan-B” — a giant bee. Last year, they had the “Meta-Moth-Isis.” They use the same platform every year, but then come up with interesting embellishments to create a new creature/vehicle. Wonder if it will be an insect next year, as well.

POWWOW WOW — I know I’m not the only one who felt the powwow-style drumming and singing in Central Park on Friday was amazing. So I gotta tell you, if you want the real deal, not just Fish and Darin and some local kids (though didn’t they sound great, yeah?)  head to the rez Aug. 7-9.

That’s when the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians will hold its annual Nesika Illahee Pow-Wow. It’s in the town of Siletz, of course, is a bit north of Highway 20, the road that goes to Newport.

STAR TREK — Saw it this weekend. Better than Harry Potter, which I also caught. Harry Potter was solid, a nice dark but funny mix. But it wasn’t great like Star Trek. Still, on my ranking scale, Kirk and Spock fall just below “The Hangover,” which is my heavyweight champ for 2009 summer movies. At least, the champ so far.

MIGHTY APHRODITE — Okay, so I have to say it loud and clear. My new favorite pizza in Corvallis comes from Big River, and is further proof why this establishment is the current champ of local restaurants. The Aphrodite pizza, a veggie variety they served me up this weekend, was darn near perfection, crisp crust, gooey cheese, kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes, nom nom nom. And fittingly enough, given the name, it was food love.

I like American Dream. Nay, I heart the Dream. I dig Woodstock’s, though they might not be so fond of some of the stories I’ve covered. But the Aphrodite was “ohmigod-this-is-good” good. Highly choice. Highly recommended. Go out and get one NOW! Oh wait. This is Sunday. Get one tomorrow.

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Anyway, as I scribbled notes at Leaping Lamb Farm near Alsea, I felt a minor pinch.  I wasn’t injured — or flattered, as some have wisecracked. I was mildly shocked, including when I looked down.

Frankly, I expected to be goosed at the farm by, you know, the goose.

Moments later, I learned the true eeevil of the white devil turkeys. As one turkey puffed up his feathers in front of photographer Casey Campbell, another came up from behind and nipped him on the calf before quickly scurrying away.

The diversion/attack technique was strongly reminiscent of the fictional velociraptors from “Jurassic Park.”

It made me wonder if the creatures weren’t trying to exact vengeance for the G-T’s coverage of Philomath’s turkey problem last fall, which resulted in the police shooting 10 of the feathered pests.

Now, don’t take this blog to be a critique of Leaping Lamb Farm. It was a great spot, and I’m thinking of staying over there sometime instead of heading to a mini-vacay at the beach.

Farm owner Scottie Jones hasn’t been thrilled with the somewhat aggressive nature of her white devil turkeys, either. But she let me know that the creatures wouldn’t be there long.

Revenge, after all, is a dish best served with a side of stuffing and cranberry sauce. (Not that I’ll be able to enjoy too much, seeing as I’m a fishyterian.)

*****

Here’s a rundown of the G-T’s top 10 Internet stories from the week of July 6-12.

Leading the pack was the news that Trader Joe’s is aiming to come to Corvallis, which got a whopping 5,384 page views. That was more than any other story got in the entire month of June, folks. Methinks there may be a niche for this business in Corn Valley, by the way.

The other big winner, or loser, was the new guidelines that prohibit dogs from entering farmers market stalls. Two stories about the rules were in the top 10.

Overall, the week was very strong, with the top three stories garnering more than 10,000 page views overall,  and the top 11 stories in quadruple digits. (The benchmark for a decent week, as I’ve said before, is 10 stories with more than 1,000 page views.)

Here’s the rest of the top of the pops

2.) Corvallis woman loses nearly $100K in bank fraud – 2,836 page views

3.) Platinum night spot closes, looks for new venue – 2,013

4.) Crime watch – 1,941 (no date so no link. Probably was July 6, though)

5.) Corvallis man faces felony marijuana charges – 1,811

6.) Dog limits take effect at farmers markets – 1,635

7.) Courtney trial to leave Benton County – 1,412

8.) $2K in cigarettes stolen – 1,398

9.) Dogs get short leashed at market – 1,327

10.) Paying for the ride – 1,059 (Sunday story on ambulance services)

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