34. Just Another Tuesday Night in Cascade

Mile: 4,038

The church building is asleep, but the bar across the street is rocking on this cool Tuesday night in Cascade, MT. The pool table sits in the center as if the main show of the evening surrounded by a mixture of old timers and youngsters alike. Laughter is the loudest music in the bar with a background of old and new country coming from the jukebox. Every lip that’s not talking or laughing is singing along. Between a couple trout mounts and white tail racks on the wall are slot machines, with one lonely soul trying her chances. A mixture of cedar planks and wood paneling make up the walls with a couple of small TVs playing the NFL game hung in the corners. Front and center behind the bar hangs a medium sized longhorn with the horns tilted way off to one side. The two old men to my right are hopelessly sending pick up line after pickup line to the young lady behind the bar. It’s easy to tell she appreciates it smiling, laughing, and shaking her head at them. A lady coming out of the back pulled a chair over to shoot the bull with the old men giving their attitude right back to them with a smile. It’s easy to tell these are locals who know each other well, almost like they are a cast of a show titled, “Just Another Tuesday Night in Cascade” playing their roles to perfection. 

You can see hard work in the eyes of every soul in here. “Hey Sherry, I need a pack of smokes!” Yells one of the youngsters who might be a day over twenty. It’s obvious the twenty-one drinking age doesn’t apply to locals. “PLEASE!” Shouts the lady who walked out from the kitchen correcting the youngster. “Please...” he says over his shoulder as he lines up the cue ball for a corner pocket shot. The girl behind the counter in one fluid motion while walking towards the kitchen grabs a pack of Marlboros and throws it over the bar towards the pool table. The young gun has to make a quick move to not let the package of cigarettes fly past him. And as if a dinner bell went off that only certain people could hear half the people in the bar walked outside including every person who was actually working the bar that night. I found myself sitting in a quiet bar with Aerosmith’s Dream On now coming loudly from the jukebox with no laughter to contend with. One more song passes and the eight who left reinter the bar bringing with them a cloud of cigarette smoke. 

It seems like a new song selector, maybe with a few more grey hairs, has taken control of the jukebox with Knockin’ On Heavens Door by Bob Dylan being the third classic rock song in row. This carries on for the next hour. I lean over the bar and ask the girl, “If a hundred people walked through that door today, how many would you know?” I can tell she’s trying to figure out how I’m going to turn this into a pick up line so I repeat myself, “I’m serious, I’m just curious, if a hundred people walked in here how many would you know?” “Mmmm at least ninety, it’s a small town.” She said walking away grabbing another beer for a guy who still had a fourth of a beer left and hadn’t said a word about getting another. He is one of the ninety I believe. The lady from the kitchen came over to the corner of the bar near me and started counting the day’s tips. “How many non-locals are in the bar right now?” I asked trying to prove my theory of the two men at the end of the bar being the only non-locals, besides me that is. She looked around, “the boy in the red sweatshirt is from the next town up and the man at the end of the bar in the glasses used to live here but he moved just outside of town earlier in the year. The boy in the blue is mine, and yeah, everybody else is from here.” I realized real quick that I blended in about as smoothly as a wet foot would slide into a leather glove. As the only true non-local in the bar, there’s no flying under the radar for me. This here, is truly a small town bar. It is just a bunch of friends and family kicking back on a Tuesday night. Good work small town Montana. Keep on keepin’ on.