At times my ability to recall events and even words spoken, is amazing. At other times I find it difficult to put things into any order and decipher when certain things happened. The time spent behind the Oxford bar seems to roll into one dark pool of disgust and loathing. At first I was barely aware of the poker games that were going on in the establishment.

As I settled into my job, I talked to Brian (the owner that hired me) and told him there was no way I was going to climb up on the ladder and change the scoreboard as the tickertape spewed out its information. That whole thing went by the wayside within approximately a month or so after my being employed there. I don’t really believe it had anything to do with my refusal to work with it, I think it was going out anyway. It seems that the cigar/ice cream counter went out shortly after that, and the five card stud table was set in the position the tickertape used to command. it is possible that the five card stud table was in the back room, but I honestly do not know if it was already there, or something that was brought in later. At that point in time, Montana law was not open to having any kind of machines in the establishments. The only thing running at the ox was poker and Pan games.

In place of the cigar/ice cream counter, a couple of stand-up bar tables/stools were set up in that area, which was part of my domain.

Pan (Panguingue) is a very old game, established back when only God knows, and a lot of the old railroaders played it. I am guessing that it was picked up by the railroaders with the influx of the Chinese and other immigrants that came to the US to work in the early 1800s and 1900s. I didn’t get infected with the Pan sickness until years later. I stayed away from the group of guys that sat at those tables, remember this was in 1979, and I was around 32 years old, the average age at that table was 65; and for some reason people of that age in those days seriously showed their age. They were all smokers, so was I, but the smoking had not taken any toll on me at the time. They couldn’t walk 10 feet across the floor without hacking and coughing, and trying to get air through phlegmy airways. Besides, in those days old wasn’t in. Aging seems to have a more revered place in society now than it did then, or perhaps it’s all in one’s perspective, and mine has changed now that I’ve stepped into that age group.

There are certain things that stand out in my thoughts while I was still tending bar, like one time in particular I had gone into work wearing dress slacks, a gorgeous lilac, chiffon blouse, with a camisole underneath that showed lace right at the neckline of the blouse, and a spiffy looking pair of high heels, that whole picture screamed CITY girl. I walked out from behind the bar to deliver a drink to a group of alcoholics that had managed to hit the bar early and ran into a guy coming in off the street. He stopped about 10 feet from me, did a mock bow, and exclaimed, “Well…hello, Cowgirl!”

I did a mock curtsy, looked at my high heels, and then back to him, “What gave me away? My cowboy boots?”

Thinking back on some of those idiot interactions have me laughing my ass off, even now.

Not long after I’d been at the bartending job, I met Bill Ogg. He was one of those types of personalities that you couldn’t help but love, he was blustery, noisy, enthusiastic, and always running on super pumped up positive attitude. He came over and interrupted my bartending duties to tell me that he was part owner of the Oxford Bar and Cafe. I never followed through with any of this to find out what part he owned, how long he’d been there, if he was part owner when I was hired, because those things, in those days, never needed research. You pretty much took someone for their word, not like the world of today where they shake your hand on a deal and stab you in the back with the other hand at the same time.

After I met Bill he was roaming around the bar one night, visiting with people sitting over at one of the standup bar tables, and I took a $50 bill for in to pay for a drink, got the drink for the person, opened the register and gave them their change, and did not pick up the $50 bill immediately. I put an empty drink glass in the sink and returned and the 50 was gone. I started looking on the floor underneath the counter hoping it had slid off, and going back to double check the bar, because $50 was a huge chunk of change in those days. Bill let me stew for a few minutes before he walked up with the 50, chuckling as he told me to always take the money first and put it in the register. That was lesson number one for me about handling money and cash registers and I never made the same mistake again.

in my inability to remember the timeframe that certain things happened in during that time period, I will relate this in as close of an order as I can put it together. The five card stud table always appeared to have action. The bus depot was on W. Broadway, across the parking lot out of the back door of the OX, almost everyone with a layover came into the OX for food or alcohol. Many of them took a seat at the poker table. At that time the OX was the only place in town that had a poker game. Remember, these games were completely legal now, by state law, since 1972. Each gaming table had to be licensed, and dealers had to have licenses, although I’m not sure that anyone who handle gambling money had to have a license, I do believe that most of the people who worked in the cage had a license because they were expected to deal a short break from time to time at the poker table.

Early in January of 1980, when I put the boards up around the bar at closing time, Bill Ogg called me over to the five card stud table. He invited me to take a seat next to him and play. I flustered and floundered with the fact that I didn’t have any money and didn’t know how to play. I was completely embarrassed as he kept insisting and patting the seat next to him. He set a stack of $1 chips in the open seat and told the dealer to deal me in.

I kept trying to escape, telling him I did not know how to play, but he waved me off with a laugh. He folded his hand and looked at mine. (I’ve laughed about this more than once over the years. The fact that he would see his hand, fold it, and then be allowed to look at mine and help me play it is pretty damn funny…totally taboo in any poker game in the world except there and then. He was the boss. No one argued.) He told me what to bet and do – I started with split 8’s and won the hand. More like he reached over and grabbed my chips and put them out for my bet and raise each time.

My life would never be the same again. I didn’t walk or run, I jumped headfirst into the last great, untamed domain – the only place left that one can escape the real world and be completely surrounded by people.