October of 1978 found my ex (we were shacking up for a few years after divorce to see if we could patch it up) heading for northwestern Montana from Hawaii.  My sis, Vickie (yuppers, the truck driving land mate of today), and her family lived in Missoula. She was willing to give us a place to stay while we got our feet on the ground.  And we jumped…right into the basement of her place, no furniture and only the bags we packed from Hawaii…lounging on the floor and walls just like the cockroaches we had left behind in Hawaii.  We had no money and nowhere to go.

I started to search for work.  I looked and applied for numerous jobs as a legal secretary – that was my gig before heading out to Oregon and then Hawaii.  The pay was criminal. Missoula is a college town and most of the girls in business classes filled in as typists and part time help.  There just were no jobs in that profession, and even if I landed something part or full time, the take home pay sucked the big one. It would almost cost me money to go to work, that’s how bad the pay scale was.  The whole job market was totally unattractive for a woman that had three sons to feed.  My ex-husband?  Yes, he had to be fed too but let’s leave that one alone for a bit.

I was qualified for other jobs: A service clerk for a Sears catalogue store; A long distance telephone operator; A bartender and a cocktail waitress; and I had managed a small delicatessen and lunch shop.  But I was lost in the job market in this area.

My ex-husband didn’t appear to care if he looked for work or not.  He was a skilled carpenter and worked in a business with his brother before he became involved in law enforcement, but for some reason, it was as if I was expected to go out and find a job.  Yes, Dear, you know who you are, Robert G. Geenen.

Vickie suggested that I become a poker dealer.  Ha!  Visit here to find out about my poker knowledge. I’d never played poker and had no idea what the game was even about, let alone learn to deal it.

Vickie talked it up, and kept talking, and kept talking…explaining that she had been playing at the bowling alley and a few other places and that people tipped the dealer when they won a pot.  The more she talked, the more interested I became.  She sat down with a deck and showed me what hands beat what…of course it didn’t register.  I was lost. I didn’t understand the betting or what a raise was or how the hands were read or anything else about the game.

Vickie found an ad in the paper.  The OX was looking for a dealer.  Talk about ballsy, I barely knew what two Aces were, let alone how to toss cards around the table. Hell, I went in and applied anyway.

I spoke with the owner, Brian Lundmark, about where I’d lived previously and what my job qualifications were.  It was an extremely simple interview, just sit and visit.  We did.

He wanted to hire me to deal but getting around the state law was going to be a problem.  In order to get a Dealer’s License, you had to be a resident of the State of Montana for a year.  The Gaming Commission didn’t want the mafia running in and taking control of the gambling.  No shit!  I found this out later and I still laugh when I think about it.  The time requirement wouldn’t work for me because I’d been in the state about a week.

I thanked Brian for his time and headed out the door.  He followed me out, catching me just as I got to my car.  He had a part time bartender’s job open.  He told me it was basic bar, nothing blended, no fuss, no muss and it wasn’t much of a job, but he liked the way I presented myself and would gladly give me the job if I wanted it.

I took it.

I think I was the first woman to ever tend bar at the OX. Until the early 70’s, women just did not frequent the OX.  It was a MAN’S bar and the men were damn proud of it.

Describing the OX could be difficult, but here goes:

The OX could be accessed through three different doors: One was the front door on Higgins Street, (which by the way was paved with cobblestones and had rails running down it for trolley travel until the 70’s), the side door on Pine Street, and the back door that opened into a small alley which led to a parking lot.The Bus Depot was at the end of the parking lot and many times travelers laying over for bus changes and transfers came in to eat and upon finding a poker game in progress, took any open seat.  Sometimes they missed their bus and continued to play until the next bus went through, at times they were at the table for 24 hours or longer.

The OX had a 20-foot high ceiling covered in decorative, dark yellow, pressed metal panels.  The walls were smooth and matched the color of the ceiling.  Three years after my employment began, the owners hired someone to wash the ceiling and walls…suddenly they were a beautiful ivory color underneath the greasy, nicotine coating.

Entering from Higgins Street, through the main door, the right wall held the 20-foot, one-piece bar and the food counter of the restaurant; the bar and food counter were separated by a three foot walk space.

The wall behind the bar (above the necessary shelves and spaces for bottles of alcohol) held a cabinet that ran the length of the bar and almost to the ceiling.  This cabinet was enclosed with glass doors and filled with collector’s bottles – booze of course.  The collection might have been unique and something to see but it was also covered with grease and nicotine just like the walls and ceilings!

The wall behind the restaurant counter held a grill, small food cooler, and refrigerator.  At the end of the restaurant counter was the door that opened onto Pine Street.  Anyone ordering and eating at the counter could watch the cook prepare his or her food.  Damn scary!  You should have seen some of those cooks, the ‘kings of Grease’ with hair and clothes to match their title.

Straight ahead on the far wall were three booths for restaurant customers and the door to the ‘Cage’  was on the left. The cage was where all the cash was kept for the register tills, the poker chips, pan chips, cashed checks and daily receipts. And it looked exactly like a cage.  The upper half of the door was barred like a bank teller’s window.

The center of the room contained a jumble of mismatched restaurant tables and chairs setting on an uneven, linoleum floor.

The wall on the left was decorated by the cigar cases…yep, those cases were filled with cigars and a person could order an ice cream shake, a dish of ice cream, or a cone…at the same counter.  This was a little concession owned by a private individual named Buzz.  Buzz liked to drink too.  And visit.

Just past the cigar counter a ticker tape machine spewed out paper containing scores of sporting event tallies, and above the machine, a giant chalkboard filled the whole wall.  The bartender updated the scores on the chalkboard during the day, climbing onto a ladder if necessary.

Just past the ticker tape and chalk board, the little island of life that always seemed to be full of people, was the ‘stand up’ 5 Card Stud table.  Stools were available for the dealer and players but a person could stand comfortably and play also.

A few more food booths covered the remainder of the left wall before it ended in a wide doorway going into the back of the OX.

The doorway going into the back of the OX opened into an anteroom which contained a pool table, a shoe shine stand (which was another private concession), the door that exited to the alley (leading to the parking lot and bus station), restrooms, and another door (leading to a prep kitchen downstairs) and beside the prep kitchen doorway, another doorway opening into another room containing another poker table and 2 pan tables.

In the anteroom, five chairs sat against the wall and faced the pool table .  Above the chairs was a sign that read, ‘No Loitering.’  There was always one or more derelict, down on his luck, alcoholics sleeping in the row of chairs, hence it became known as ‘Dead Pecker Row.’  A few times I spotted a wet pool under the chair where the sleeper was in a coma and couldn’t figure out he needed to use the bathroom.

The room with the pan and poker tables also had a door that led into another anteroom on the left.  This anteroom contained another restroom, storage boxes and cabinets, and a door that led down rickety, steep steps into the Secret Room where poker was played long before it was legal in the state. Yes, this would be where my dad played poker when I was a kid living in Drummond.  I made the trek down into the room several times over the years.  It was a musty, dusty, stinky hole that still had a poker table and chairs, a spittoon that appeared to never have been dumped from 20 or so years before, a wood divider standing in front of a toilet (that’s real privacy, ain’t it?), and a doorway that opened into the prep kitchen. A story on this later as I march (that’s for you Ken) through the time chapters of poker.

Back upstairs in the pan and poker room, on the right, was another entrance to the Cage.

Here I was, all dressed up and ready to go to work at the OX as a bartender.  Yummy!  Catch up with me another day.