Tonight Joe and I went to another lecture sponsored by the Ft. Caspar Museum. It was part of their summer lecture series which is free to the public. This was the description for tonight's presentation:

Jukeboxes and Jackalopes: A Wyoming Bar Journey" by Julianne Couch

Julianne Couch will explore bars as places of storytelling and community. Couch is an Associate Lecturer of English at the University of Wyoming. Her book, “Jukeboxes and Jackalopes: A Wyoming Bar Journey” recently won a Western Horizon award from Wyoming Writers, Inc.

Somehow along the way I never caught the part that said "A Wyoming Bar Journey". That might have changed whether Joe and I went tonight. However, if was a very fun and informative free 1 hour in the middle of the week.

This husband and wife team had a grant to visit primarily small towns which had only one bar. Bars that might be the central meeting place for the entire town. Some of the names of the bars visited were:

• Rowdy's Spirits & Bait (guess you can get drunk before fishing or after fishing and I'll bet the fish tales would get to be real whoppers!)


• Brite Spot


• Longbranch Saloon


• Double Shot


• Spotted Horse


• The (yep, that's all the name of the bar since the second word fell off years ago)


• Bill's Yacht Club. (This place is out in the middle of nowhere near no water. Why the name? Apparently years ago a truck carrying carnival rides came through town and a little metal boat for a child's ride fell off. Hence the yacht).


• Tumble Inn

There were even a couple of strange bars:

• One located in a mining town had a urinal trough that was attached to the bar. That way the bar attendees never had to leave to go to the men's room.


• One located in a hunting area was called the Bear In Bar. If you were a hunter and shot a bear, you brought the bear into the bar, had your picture taken and the bear hung out while you finished drinking.

See, you can learn something new every day. I doubt this is something I'd be speaking about in a future church talk though.

And, when they were showing pictures and they came to the town of Kaycee, I recognized one of the bartenders. She now works out at the oilfield in the lower office. Just goes to show that even out here after only 7 months, you'd better watch out cause you never know what someone may catch you doing! So Sue is now published in this book and may not even know it...yet.

Oh, and the reason for the title of the book? It seems that every bar in Wyoming has a jukebox and a whole jackalope or the head of a jackalope.