I.
Inside a pizza parlor on a late winter night, a man who is not Roger Waters plays "Wish You Were Here" in a key not familiar to the song. Occasionally he misses a chord, but no one minds. The Veggie Delight here is serviceable and the beer is local and nothing more is needed.
Outside, whirls of drizzle and the small-town desertion of a late Tuesday night present the illusion this tavern has detached itself from place and time as to live alone in a snow globe of Pacific Northwest mist. Here is Willoughby and here is Grover's Corners; here is a sigh of saudade held in place by the Pacific Ocean and the lack of anywhere else to go. Here is Long Beach, Washington, on a misty night in the wane of the plague.
II.
According to Wikipedia, Long Beach was originally named Tinkerville -- "Tinker" being a proper noun and not a verb -- but the reason why Tinkerville became Long Beach in 1922 is not noted. Wikipedia also mentions that between 1889 and 1930, a narrow-gauge railway ran through the town. What happened to the tracks after 1930 is also not noted: Long Beach is just the kind of place where things happen and no one bothers to write them down.
Long Beach wasn't always like this.
Before the Great War, Long Beach was a destination! A grand hotel awaited the folk of means who came to take the sea air. This hotel burned down, then was replaced by another hotel (which also burned down) and then replaced by a third hotel whose fate, unsurprisingly, is not noted by Wikipedia. A reasonable soul could be forgiven for thinking it went up in flames, thus completing the Trifecta of Long Beach Grand Hotel Infernos.
The final hotel's fate shocked the city's leader's into action: they needed a Plan B and they needed it fast. At some un-noted point, they put their brains to work (and I suspect pickled them in a monumental bout of drinking, considering what's coming). Their eureka! moment was an idea perfectly in line with the era that gave us The Three Stooges: the town's boosters would draw the attention of cartoonist Robert L. Ripley by creating the world's largest fry pan (I told you this was coming).
Surprisingly, they actually made the pan; it didn't even burn down. The cost of this singular contribution to the culinary arts is not noted (unsurprisingly), but civic pride and Hail Mary attempts at drawing tourists truly have no set price -- and by that I mean I'm positive someone got shorted in the making of the damned thing.
With their prop in place, it was time to put on a show. Like the mighty peacock whose tail is all a-flutter to attract his mate, the citizens of Long Beach gathered together and cooked about 100 pounds of clams in the giant pan in hopes of attracting the world's most popular cartoonist. Whether this stunt made Robert L. "Believe it or not" is not noted, but I'm sure everyone downwind had no problem testifying to the first clause of Ripley's idiom.
(Incidentally, the pan is still there, a relic of a time when the world's largest anything was worth a 200 mile drive over ruts and chuckholes just to see it in person. I suppose they figured a photograph just wouldn't do it justice. Keeping with the same theme, Long Beach is also home to the World's Largest Chopsticks, which are literally two long pieces of wood painted like chopsticks. I am not making this up, nor could I if I tried.)
(end pt. 1)