The Blessed Mug

Once upon a time, I owned World's Best Coffee Mug. It was deserving of a proper noun being extra tall, white (my favorite color) and possessing a faded old picture of the regal Polk County Courthouse on it with my hometown name, Dallas, Oregon, emblazoned across the bottom. It came to me in 2009 via Paige, one of my heart's dearest, who had scored it at a crusty estate sale somewhere in Oregon's Willamette Valley. It was quite unexpected and the perfect cure for my rampant homesickness while in the Great State of Texas. Through a series of unfortunate events, the stalwart mug got in a car accident of sorts and has now taken up residence wherever garbage ends up here in the Emerald City. 


Last night, I got the bright idea to start scouring the internet for its replacement which has proved to a) be a lot harder than I initially imagined and b) provide some priceless fodder for the blog. Naturally my search began with Google. I figured "Dallas, Oregon coffee mug" was a good place to start but alas, that search produced nothing useful. Then I headed to eBay which somehow pointed me to the Made in Oregon store, a commercialized repository for all kinds of crap with loose Oregonian ties like seaglass balls, dream catchers and ceramic angel ornaments. I decided to make one last attempt before bed and ran a Google image search to see if the mug even existed on the interwebs annnnnnd here's where the night got interesting. 


The image search "Dallas, Oregon coffee mug" gave me the following GEMS:

Frolicking goats on Clay Street (pretty sure this is verrrrry near my house)

A registered sex offender I did go to high school with

A registered sex offender I did not go to high school with

An Indian chief and our ex-governor whose campaign ads claimed 
he was raised by nuns and that, "I'm a pretty good bowler too"

Dirk Nowitski

In hopes of bringing a greater level of specificity to my search, I Googled "Dallas, Oregon Polk County Courthouse Coffee Mug" and got these lovelies:

My recently deceased Great Uncle

Super hottie, brought to you by METH!

Needless to say, the search continues. But if you happen to be perusing a dead person's belongings up for sale and see a tall white mug with something like this on it (see below)...don't hesitate to buy. I'll pay the shipping.