Maybe We're Crazy

Sunday, August 30th 2009
Wilson, WY – Stage Coach

Ok, this entry doesn’t have anything to do with the National Parks or the wilderness, but it does have to do with another type of wild, and that is of drunken youth.  Jen says it’s just a story for my guy friends, so those of you with delicate sensibilities please exit here.

This is a great story that I just got to share with you and it’s one of things that never happens to me.  Well, wait a minute; it’s only happened to me a handful of times, way back in my day.  It’s one of those times that that when you tell your guy friends and they say “No fucking way.”

Let me set the scene, but please bare with me, because the first part of this rainy Sunday in Jackson Hole was boring, but gets good right about midnight.

We get up late since we can hear it’s raining out, but after lounging long into the morning we do a quick clean up and head out to the historic Jedidiah’s log cabin for breakfast.  It has a newspaper type menu filled with old time tall tales of local hero’s famous escapes from Indians and outlaws.  It’s actually really interesting to read and I hope that I remembered to save it, because I’d like to add a few good stories here later.

This is followed by a stroll around town and then back to the RV to edit some recently shot photos of our trip into the back country of the Grand Tetons.  It’s everything a boring Sunday can be, but I’m just glad just to be relaxing and catching up on e-mail, Facebook and news while listening to some good music on NPR’s American Roots.

The afternoon slips by fast and the rain has stopped, so we decide that we’ll go out for H.H. at the local Snake River brew pub.  The place is jam packed with locals enjoying their fine brew.  Nothing too exciting here, but it was fun to people watch.  It’s filled with a good mix of young, old, locals and few tourists.

On our way back to the rig I remembered that our friendly neighbor Donavan who lives in his converted 1969 school bus and has been for the last 15 years told us that he was going to the Stagecoach in Wilson, WY for their Sunday night music.  He tells us that this place has had the same Stagecoach band playing Sundays for the last 40+ years and has only missed a couple of dates because Sunday landed on Christmas day or Eve.  The band’s leader was an older man playing the banjo and a local legend for having been the first to ski down from the top of the Grand in the early 60’s.  We see some photos of him in his younger days playing right there on this very stage with Bob Dylan and a few other famous musicians.  A local tells me he was one hell raiser in his youth and by the looks of it you can tell.  After brief self introduction I tell him he must be famous and he gives me this sheepish smile and a quick excited chuckle that says yes indeed he has lived and lead a very exciting life.

The Stagecoach is like any roadhouse you’d pass in any small town of the West They kind of all look alike with their mud puddle filled parking lot and neon beer signs in the window and not more than spitting distance from the road.  We walk in and the place is filled with local folks in their Sunday’s best, freshly washed and ironed Western styled shirts, blue jeans, bolo ties, cowboy hats and boots.  There were more handle bar mustaches and guys wearing cowboy hats and boots than not, so it was locals only for sure.  The music is good and people are swing dancing and having a great time.  There is an 80+ year old out on the dance floor dancing with two young women.  I saw him earlier trying to get the two girls sitting next to us out on the dance floor, but he was politely rejected.  This obviously did not dampen his spirits, since we was really in the groove and could actually dance.  The girls were having a great time too.  He was the one in the bolo tie I mentioned earlier and it looked as if he has had it for decades.  He is at least 80 by the looks of his face, but is in remarkable shape for his age and obviously still interested in the ladies.  An inspiration to us all.

Wilson, WY - Stagecoach

Well the band stopped at about 10:00 and we sipped our beers until about 10:30.  The crowd was definitely thinning out and we were looking to do the same.  We jumped into the rig thinking there would be a good quiet spot just across the street, but after turning down one street that looked promising just ended up going out into ranch country with no good pull offs or quiet spots to spend the night.  I tried to pull in behind the breakfast place that someone had recommended that we try the next morning, but it was right next to a landscape company with heavy machinery and didn’t want to get woken up early by the tractors and dump trucks starting their work week, so we opted to go pack behind the Stagecoach where I saw another camper parked with its light on before we left.

I’m was a little agitated from our failed attempt to find a good spot, since we’ve lucked out almost every time on this trip by finding a free camping site with a glorious view and I was regretting slumming it in this mud puddle filled dirt parking lot.  Jen and I got in to a quick argument about something stupid, and now I cannot even remember what it was about.  The RV is just too small of a space to be sharing it with someone when you’re not getting along, so I did what any typical guy would do and went back into the bar to cool off.

I am expecting to walk into a bar filled with drunken cowboys who just may try to kick my ass for wearing flip flops or for a numerous other stereotypes and cliches I had floating through my head at the time…  I’ve got a ten day old beard, so I walk into the door quietly with my head down trying to blend in with the wood work and I am startled to hear they’re cranking Led Zepplin’ Kashmir.  I look up and there’s just a hand full of 20 and early 30 somethings in there just rocking out.  There are two guys and one girl on the dance floor with their shirts off dancing really hard.  When Rage Against the Machine comes on the two guys look like as they’re wrestling and flipping each other around like something you’d see on WWF.  The young woman is occasionally dirty dancing with one of the two and with only her bra and pants on the guys are yelling “Take it off” repeatedly.

I am still trying to keep it on the D.L. sitting on the end of the bar with my baseball cap pulled down low, but I’m obviously enjoying the show.  Yes, scenes and the sound track of my reckless youth are right there live and on display in front of me.  It’s like I am having a flashback, an out of body experience or have some how stepped into a time vortex which transported me back to the good old days of long lost youth.  You may call me an old perv, but I call it good clean fun.  Well, a little dirty, but nothing I’d have to go to confession over.

So, at this time I had a battle of two instincts going on in my mind.  First one was to run back to the RV to get my camera, because I can tell things are going to start to get interesting and besides if I don’t actually get some proof there will always be questions about weather this really happened as described.

My second instinct is to sit there selfishly, visually gorging myself on the pure, raw, uninhibited sexuality of youth.  I choose the later, since it’s almost a gamble leaving the place thinking at the time they might just lock the door.  I was also afraid that it might be over by the time I got back.  It was also going against my initial intention of blending in, so there that’s my justification for not having any evidence.

I have no clue of what I said to the guy next to me between songs, but he yells to the bar tender, “put whatever this guy wants on my tab.”  This is when more of the yelling “take it off” starts in earnest.  I mean the whole group of guys are now yelling it in unison.  In my effort to blend I am right there with them yelling it to.  Even the only other woman in the bar is helping convince her.  One young pimply face fat kid who seems to have a little money yells out “I’ve got $30 if the bra comes off.”  The kid next to him not wanting to be out done yells “I’ll buy everyone in the house a drink if the bra comes off.”

The two young women disappear into the bathroom for a few minutes and emerge on queue just as AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” comes on the jukebox and man oh man it sure seemed like we were at the time.  The bra gets slingshot over my head and she steps up onto the bar right next to me in her pink panties with a floral lace.  It’s obvious she’s done this before because she has all the moves of a stripper or at least the ones I’ve seen in the movies. (ha ha)  She surprisingly graceful, because my first thought was she might be so drunk that this could easily turn into a disaster, but she is rocking to the riotous cheers of all the guys while the bartender is looking on pleasantly dismayed, brandishing a sheepish grin.  She even is able to make fun of the guy who’s passed out with his head on the bar by grabbing him by the ears and grinding away on his face for a few seconds, which he is oblivious to.

The money was paid, the free drinks were served and it was the most fun I’ve had with my pants on in a long time.