Mommy and Maddi's in Keizer

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Don't forget that to appreciate the photos of scenery it is best to click to enlarge them.

This was rare and surprising dining find which we came across after driving an hour and a half trying to find an interesting place to eat.... We drove south through Canby, Aurora, Hubbard, and Woodburn, approaching the state capital of Salem on HWY 99 (see map below) but as we approached Salem we turned right towards Keizer (on Wikipedia) hoping to find an interesting restaurant there. 

This took us through a huge section of flatlands with hills many miles away on each side. It was almost all beautiful farmland but not the hilly wine country you encounter when going in other directions. Most of the farms (there are numerous photos on the bottom of this page) were devoted to other crops and there were a few dairy farms.

On a street with nothing but stores and commercial buildings we spotted the restaurant. It is between a pot store and a chiropractor's office.

It opened 13 years ago in this lovely house which was built in 1914 and somehow remained standing as the street succumbed new construction and commercialization. 

This is from their Facebook page:

You can see that additions were added to the original house. We ate in a room that was added.

It is owned by a mother-daughter team as the name suggests. Here's their extensive menu.

Below, there's a large parking lot and a drive-trough window in the back.

The food was amazing. We talked to the man sitting next to us, a Vietnam vet who used an electric wheel chair to get there from his home a mile away. Below is him crossing the busy street on his way home.

He said since it opened he came there to eat at least twice a week. This surely qualifies him as a regular.

Here are some photos I took of the interior:

I had what was described on the menu as "the best chicken sandwich ever" and the soup of the day, broccoli cheddar. It  truly was the best chicken sandwich I'd ever had.

As you can see I could  only eat a little of the bread.

My friend had a giant bacon mushroom Swiss omelet with perfect hash browns (below) and also couldn't finish it.

There are over 50 photos on their Yelp page:

Here are photos of the countryside:

The only downside to the day happened when we were stopped by this for about a half hour.

We finally got going and had to follow the pilot car for several miles. 

This screwed up the navigation so we reset it to go home on the freeway. Then we hit bumper to bumper traffic and decided to get off but I could set the navigation not to go back on the expressway so we followed signs to Lake Oswego which we knew how to get home from. It took us at least two hours to get home.

All in all it was a very worthwhile outing. 

Libbie's Restaurant Milwaukie, OR

 

About my career and about the Mason Mental Health Center ||||| My 1400+ Daily Kos political stories are here || Open just this page || Back editions (archive) in right column.

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Notice that the door and big window you can see through only shows half the dining area. The door next to it which has a sign saying that minors are not allowed because it is a bar is the entrance to where everyone was eating. It is a solid door with no window.

 I wonder if this restaurant wants to cater only to locals and others who know about it. After all the menu says it is Milwaukie's best kept secret.

The Libbie's website

It was Sunday night and the plan was to eat at either Cha! Cha! Cha! or Ovation, our two favorite restaurants in the closest town of Milwaukie. There are about a half dozen restaurants on their Main Street and one, the popular Grandma's Corner Kitchen (website), on the heavily traveled McLoughlin which runs parallel to Main Street. Both Cha! Cha! Cha! and Ovation were closed so we decided to try Libbie's which is next door to Cha! Cha! Cha! We'd looked inside the window several times before but there were never any diners inside. 

Above: From a website

None-the-less we went in and indeed there was a large dining area which was totally empty. It turns out that all the diners were in a room through the door into the bar section. 

The liver and onions were quite good. The soup of the day was Italian wedding soup and it was delicious.  Below, the Manila clams were average but they were serve in a clam shaped bowl.

This is one of the better humorous bar signs I've seen:

The person writing the menu who described a BLT  as "Come on! You know what's on this one!" had a sense of humor:

Below is the backroom which is available for functions:

Here's a YouTube video from 2012 about Libbie's:

The menu (click to enlarge each page) is extensive and the prices can't be beat.

Libbie's has only one TV. It was tuned to a professional basketball game but nobody was paying any attention. There are two or three lottery type game machines.

I asked the the seventy-ish year old waitress who wasn't particularly friendly (perhaps she was having a bad day) who Libbie was and she said she didn't know. I gave her a 30% tip anyway.

The Libbie's website has photos taken some time ago and it doesn't look like these today:

There's no more Golden Nugget Bar.

The closest restaurants to where I live are actually ones I've never been to. It makes sense to try them out. 

One is McQueen's Bar and Grill (website) a few minutes drive on River Rd. The other is in the other direction - The River Roadhouse. It is just to the right as you drive up the hill on 22nd Ave. coming back from Milwaukie. I may check them out. 

Above from the River Road House Facebook page.

Why not arm teachers with AR15s?

 

About my career and about the Mason Mental Health Center ||||| My 1400+ Daily Kos political stories are here || Open just this page || Back editions (archive) in right column.

To stop school shooters with AR-15s and body armor: teachers with AR-15s and body armor?

Pictured Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert imagined as teachers guarding their elementary school

Once again the idea of arming teachers to thwart would-be school shooters is a “thing” among Republicans. After the Parkland shootings Trump proposed this:

—

President Donald Trump’s suggestion that teachers should be armed and trained to combat school shooters was widely criticized Wednesday. 

Meeting with students and parents affected by school shootings at the White House, Trump listened to emotional stories and pleas to enhance school safety. He suggested that armed teachers might be able to neutralize shooters like the former student who fatally shot 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last week. 

“If you had a teacher who was adept the firearm, they could end the attack very quickly,” he said Wednesday, stating that schools could arm up to 20% of their teachers to stop “maniacs” who may try and attack them.

“I’m not here to debate, but I lost my sister,” said Hunter Pollack, whose sister Meadow was killed in last week’s shooting. 

“And like Mr. President said, if you could find 20% of maybe retired law enforcement officers, or a teacher who could go through discreet training to carry a firearm around his waist, it could’ve been a very different situation.”  CNN

Once again we are hearing this from Trump and others in the GOP. Here’s what Trump said when he addressed the NRA convention:

Former President Donald Trump called for an overhaul of school security in the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting and demanded that teachers be armed during a speech to National Rifle Association members on Friday.

'Surely we can all agree our schools should not be the softest target our school should be the single hardest target in our country,' he said to applause.

'And that's why as part of a comprehensive school safety plan, it's time to finally allow highly trained teachers to safely and discreetly concealed carry, let them concealed carry.' Daily Mail

This is so patently wrong-headed, so practically impossible, that I am sure even Wayne LaPierre knows that the arming teachers proposal is a heaping pile of bullcrap. He knows it is a diversionary idea to pony up to avoid any actual regulation regulating guns. It doesn’t bear an explanation as to why in any number of scenarios even a highly trained teacher with a handgun wouldn’t have been able to stop the Uvalde and similar school massacres.

The NRA mantra that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun is more accurately stated as the only way to stop a school shooter with an AR-15 and body armor by a teacher is if they are armed with an AR-15 and are wearing body armor. 

The Poll:

Sen. Murphy says there's  ‘growing momentum’ on gun violence legislation after latest meeting of bipartisan group (article The Hill). Do you agree?

Here are then main provisions the Democrats propose (from House Democrats Have a Gun Control Proposal That's Painfully in Touch With Reality):

• raising the purchasing age for semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21

• banning the import, sale, manufacture, and possession of large-capacity magazines

• putting in place safe-storage requirements within the home

• creating criminal penalties for storage violations.

Poll from Daily Kos

81 votes

How likely to you think there will be any meaningful legislation about gun control? 0 = Very unlikely to 10 = Very likely