The Usefulness of Bars

There I was, perched on another bar stool, this one somewhere in eastern Montana. Bars are great places to be for some…dangerous ones for others. Thankful to be among the former group, I enjoy them as they are a box of stories, all gathered in one location.

Usually it is the drinker who has the story.

Tonight it was the short, chubby, blonde-haired pony-tail wearing, tie-dyed shirt wearing bartender. She and I shared some commonalities; born in Ohio, living in Oregon, and having a sense of adventure.

Asking how she arrived in this spot brought forth stories I encouraged her to write.

“Throwing money at us. That’s what they were doing and why I stayed when I drove home from Ohio to Oregon. I checked it out, went to Oregon, got my stuff and returned to work.”

She was referring to the oil boom that the region had experienced in the late 2000’s, the one that turned northeastern Montana and North Dakota into a form of the 1849 gold rush. I’d heard about the housing difficulties and the sky-high prices but I knew no one who had really experienced it.

She had.

She told of living in her tin camper as she referred to it, sleeping in her coveralls and whatever else she had, freezing night after night. She waited tables, cleaned, did any job she could to make money but more so, to keep warm as heat was at the job but not in her camper. Others around her lived the same life. When they departed the jobs, none of them had left with any “real”…