Filbert Talk

The order came down: the hazelnut creamer was expiring soon so push it hard.

I was all over it. The coffee cart was my gig.

The door to the street ministry opened and homeless men and women signed in, sat down at tables, and waited for the breakfast and coffee carts to roll around.

Moments later, I was pouring a Multnomah Falls of hazelnut creamer. Coffee and hazelnut. Hot chocolate and hazelnut. Tea and hazelnut. Straight shots of hazelnut. Hazelnut on granola.

I was damn near the reincarnation of PT Barnum hawking this sweet swill. Or better yet, I was like one of those bartenders pouring rotgut whiskey in a B Western. I served one man a coffee and hazelnut and he said he loved the five-star service and wonderful breakfast. I told him to write a glowing Yelp review and he pulled out his phone and got to it. A homeless man writing a review of a street ministry's service and breakfast! How about that? (I have no idea.)

What I observed people were doing while drinking hazelnut beverages: one man played Galaga on his phone. One woman sketched a self portrait with a pencil. One man stared at the ceiling. One woman colored in a coloring book and it was a bit bracing to see she was coloring an outline of a tear drop trailer parked along a forested creek, where they typically should be, but not where I see them these days.

It was all going well when a dispute broke out between two men sitting a table. Coffee, hazelnut creamer and tables went flying. They stood up and squared off.

I was standing a few feet away and rolled the cart away from the ruckus. I was prepared to go into action, but eventually the situation calmed down and the two men left. A pall hung over the room. I poured more coffee and hazelnut.

Time to inject a little levity. I said to a table of men and women, “Anyone know the real name of hazelnut, Oregon's official state nut?”

Useless trivia has a way of bringing people together. I didn't think anyone would know the answer and a discussion would ensue and evaporate the hostility in the air.

The question was barely out of my mouth when an elderly man with short gray hair barked out, “filberts!”

A practical hosanna of “filberts” went up and we struck up a conversation on the subject.

The elderly man said his grandfather had planted thousands of filbert trees in the Willamette Valley. Another man mentioned the hazelnut groves in Molalla, Canby, Amity, Woodburn, Sheridan.

I remarked I was astonished at how many farmers were ripping out other cash crops and planting hazelnut trees in the fields along I-5 and Highway 99.

An elderly woman said Oregon was the world's greatest producer of hazelnuts. I said Turkey was second. Another man said hazelnuts were in everything: ice cream, candy, booze, milkshakes, stouts, cannabis, yogurt...creamer.

It was obvious to me that all participants in this conversation were native Oregonians. How did I surmise that? Filberts, that's how.

The elderly man recalled his grandfather entering rows of filbert figures in ledgers: acreage planted, number of trees, tons harvested, prices.

How in the world did a scion from a prosperous filbert farmer end up in a street ministry not more than 30 miles away from the family farm? How did all these native Oregonians in their 40s, 50s and 60s end up homeless and drinking hazelnut creamer in their coffees?

I drained a carton and cracked open another. I was getting calls from around the room for hazelnut refills. No one did that for milk (Oregon's official state drink.)

More and women entered the ministry. I was on the move!

A few minutes later, I asked the elderly man why they (whoever “they” is) changed the name from filberts to hazelnuts.

“They went corporate,” he said. “Oregon went corporate.”

And here all these older dispossessed Oregonians were, drinking coffee with filbert-flavored creamer in a street ministry located in the Willamette Valley in the former capital of the Oregon Territory. There was some extraordinary definition of this type of cosmic convergence, but I didn't know the word for it.

At some point, most of the customers drifted into slumber and I found myself standing next to another volunteer. He admired my zeal at pushing the creamer and said so.

To this point, I hadn't tasted the creamer. I held up the carton and examined the ingredients.

No hazelnuts! None. Zero! Fake. Phony. Only natural (undefined) and artificial flavors concocted in lab by chemists who had never visited Oregon or Turkey for that matter and had never heard of filberts.

It was all so disillusioning to my Oregon spirit.

I told the volunteer about the filbert-less creamer. He laughed. Then I laughed. The ruse probably meant something deeper than mere clandestine chemistry, but we weren't going to investigate it this morning. We were working.

“Should I tell them?” I said.

“No,” he said.

I agreed.

A tall young man materialized near me with his cup. He wanted more creamer. As I topped him off, he rhapsodized about the taste of hazelnuts and I smiled the whole time I poured.