Go West, My Man, to Cowboy Country!

When you grow up in the Chicago suburbs, you have very little interaction with cowboys.  It starts with the neighborhood kids and the cap guns and cute little hats that are the costumes for “Cowboys and Indians”.  And it is possible that you will run across similar costumes of the “drugstore cowboys” of both the pharmaceutical and peacock variety. The line dancing craze hit a lot of the dance clubs for the western wannabee’s as well. But “real cowboys”?  Not in Chicago. Not even in the “western” suburbs.

So, as a junior executive getting a business trip to Denver, down deep I had the desire to find a "real cowboy".  The way you expect to see a movie star if you go to Hollywood.  Or a fisherman if you go to Boston.  A basketball player in Raleigh.  A Southern belle in Atlanta.  That sort of thing.

But after a couple days of business in Denver, I still had no sightings of any cowboys unless they were all in disguise in business suits and designer ties.  Not even any cowboy hats!  Business is business, apparently, no matter where you go.  So, after the last business dinner meeting, I went back to my hotel room, changed into some jeans and a plaid shirt, aware that this was a giveaway touristy outfit.  So dressed, I went to the street and hailed a taxi, and bravely asked him to take me to a bar where there would be some “real cowboys”.  Without missing a beat, he looked at me in his rearview mirror, and said “OK, can do.  Gay or straight?”  That really threw me.  “Either” I mumbled and pulled my baseball cap down over my face, wishing that it were a big ole cowboy hat that could hide me from the momentary embarrassment. He laughed out loud.

He pulled up in front of a brightly lit bar that just screamed “This is a Gay Bar”. Seeing my hesitation, he said to me, “Down the street in the next block is a small honky-tonk that is pretty authentic western if you just want a beer and not a reverse-drag show.  But it ain’t a gay bar.”  I had my butt on a bar stool in the honky-tonk before he had pocketed my fare.

The little bar was not unlike neighborhood bars back in Chicago.  Except everyone had on boots and jeans and a wide brimmed hat.  The jukebox was the main source of country songs, but occasionally a weedy looking stringbean of a cowpoke would swing off of one of the barstools and sing and pluck a guitar.  Mournfully.  Lost love.   I was loving it.  I was content to sip the cold beer, listen to the singing