Dan Cannon (Mitchell) is a community poet and gifted storyteller with a wide-ranging repertoire of local histories and anecdotes of everyday life. Some stories were passed down to him, and some are newly told, but all are embellished with his farcical style. He can be found relating stories at many town occasions, or at his Cannon Tire Center, which serves as a cultural hub for his small community.
Bio
Attend any community event in the tiny town of Mitchell, Oregon, and you’ll find Dan Cannon entertaining the audience. Cannon is a gifted storyteller with a wide-ranging repertoire. He prides himself on collecting and relating local histories and anecdotes of everyday life. At the same time, Cannon is no stickler for the facts. “What I don’t know,” he says with a sly look, “I’ll make up.” When the occasion calls for humor, he might recount an over-the-top episode from Mitchell’s rough-and-tumble mill town days. People also press him into service at more somber moments, and no Mitchell funeral is complete without a eulogy from Dan Cannon. Cannon attributes his gift to the influence of his father, Bob Cannon, and the social atmosphere around Bob Cannon Station, a small auto shop the elder Cannon operated. It was there that Dan began hearing stories from Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. “This country was settled by a lot of people out of the South,” Cannon says. “They would gather at my dad’s station about every day, and they would sit there, and they’d tell these stories over and over again. In fact, they told them so many times I just started picking up on it.” Today, Dan Cannon runs his own auto shop, Cannon Tire Center, an oasis on U.S. Highway 26. Like his father’s shop, the tire center serves as a cultural hub for a small community. Cannon stays busy, not just helping motorists on their way to the nearby Painted Hills, but also by spinning the tales that keep and pass on local culture.
