Three generations of the Ticket family have stood behind their bar in the fictional small town of Cordell, Oregon, serving the rich and poor, loggers and lumbermen, dreamers and drifters, revelers and mourners. Owen Ticket, the current proprietor, hasn't spent much time outside of this town created by two entrepreneurs. But he has seen and heard about it all.

When Owen and an out-of-towner engage in a story-telling match, Owen pours forth tale after engaging tale, garnishing most with his own perceptive and insight into human nature and condition. Ticket's Bar has been through it all - the booms and bubbles and heartaches of the 1900s with Depression, Prohibition, two war wars, the Korea conflict, the Vietnam debacle, and the plight of the American wood industry.

Join Owen as he opens the tap and draws a pitcher full of laughter and tears, offering a century's worth of entertainment from his person and time inter-connected stories. The reader meets a pokerplaying cheat, the love-anguished Constanze Osterhagen, Paws The Wonder Dog, Stonekicker Bob, the Frenchman, the local grave digger, Owen's father and grandfather, and Anne Oakley herself.

All of this and more in the shadow of Mt. Hood, the high plains, and the majestic but treacherous Deschutes River. So, pull up a stool, park your heels on the brass foot rail and settle in for the wonderful story-telling skills of Owen Ticket.