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Taking a Trip and Never Leaving Town

By Ken Wright

Worlds within worlds. Even within our daily world. If we'll just travel there. As we learned right here in downtown Durango on a wintry Friday night.
See, the story goes, my friend Matt won an appearance by a local band at a silent auction. So he reserved the auditorium at the local VFW - the largest dance floor in town - and planned a gathering as a novel way to while away a mid-winter night. In the arctic weeks beforehand, we navigated toward that date like a ship homing on a lighthouse. But winter struck first. On the day of the show, the lead singer regretfully bagged the gig, in the chokehold of laryngitis and flogged by the flu.
Word went out about the cancellation, but with such short notice, Matt and his wife, Janet, thought it best to personally intercept any eager party-seekers whom the news hadn't reached. So Sarah and I, being the devoted friends we are (and being all revved up with no place to go) joined them on their vigil at the VFW.
Off the big party room in the VFW hall is a small bar with four little veneer-topped tables fronting a window, still draped in holiday garland, that looks out over the iceberged Main Avenue. Softball trophies stand along one wall and a lonely spider plant hangs in the far corner of the room. Silhouetted battlefield dioramas line the back of the bar, manned that night by a woman in a tucked-in long-sleeve T-shirt and tight jeans sporting a Harley Davidson belt buckle.
When we arrived, about 6 p.m., a half dozen or so well-worn patrons were already anchored at the bar. Our entrance, to us, anyway, felt like walking into an old movie - like, say, "Easy Rider." All present paused visibly and in unison, silently shifting their attention our way. We paused right back, until Matt stepped forward and explained to the bartender that it was his event that had been canceled that night, and we'd like to have a few drinks while we waited to rope any strays.
This seemed to fit protocol. We signed in, ordered some drinks, then circled the wagons around one of the empty tables. The natives perched at the bar went back to their drinks. And that seemed to be that.
One time, when my friend Matt was here for another event, he used the men's restroom, where he found himself pissing on a Hillary Clinton sticker stuck to the target zone of the urinal. I looked around. No Obama people here either, I bet. And none of the other dozen-or-so late-arrivers who slipped in over the next hour dispelled my stereotypes, either. And none of them had to sign in - all were greeted warmly and loudly by their bar buddies.
Just when my leery first impressions couldn't get any more hardened, a guy shuffled through the bar with a laptop and a couple of boxes. He unloaded his burden at the table next to us, clipped some cables into the big silent TV overhead, and - I probably audibly gasped - launched karaoke night at the VFW.
But here's where things took a twist. (Yes, true, I'm sure another gin and tonic helped turn the screw). For the next hour we were treated to the sounds of various wannabe Gand Ol' Opry stars taking their turns at the microphone and turning in passable, sometimes downright plausible, renditions of old-time country-and-western classics.
The night began with two women covering Tammy Wynette and Loretta Young. Then others rose for their chance to share versions of twangy classics, like "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Sweet Caroline" and others. And they, well, weren't horrific. And, the funny thing is, everyone was into it - what early on were a line of slumped and laconic barflies rallied behind their buddies' turns at the mic. I guess my stereotype didn't have room for this kind of, well, zany public exhibition and warm barroom camaraderie for . . . karaoke? At the VFW??
We sat there, four foreigners - even if we're from the same country, even the same town - watching in bemused fascination as these veterans of foreign wars, and mostly wars we ourselves had been only kids during, both men and women, stood to grasp the microphone and sing sincerely, heart-felt country-music standards, while lyrics rolled across the TV in HD and steel guitar filled the bar.
Even the highest flying of the barflies got his minute and a half of VFW fame. The drunkest guy at the bar had been claiming to be leaving since we had arrived, but managed only to swerve around the room swirling in the bar's eddyline, saying good bye to each pal along his route. Even he got hooked by the mic, though, and earnestly slurred his way through a sloppy-happy version of "On the Road Again." And even he was met after with cheers and backslaps and hugs.
Then a guy named Bob with a silver mustache and in a corduroy jacket belted out a booming version of "Sixteen Tons," which he then followed up with, displaying his range, an emotional take on Eddie Arnold's "Make the World Go Away." By then, I was impressed. (And, in the interest of full disclosure, was served another gin and tonic.)
Bob was the turning point: My xenophobia fell away, freeing my inner traveler. I relaxed and gave myself over to the place I had unexpectedly found myself inhabiting on this Friday night less than a mile from my house. My friends and I were no longer able to remain just dumbfounded bystanders, and joined in, shaking Bob's hand and congratulating him. The bar was so enthused at this point, that Bob and another woman were compelled to croon together through Johnny Mathis' "Chances Are."
And after that we applauded and cheered along with our fellow patrons.
The high point, as far as I'm concerned, though, was the guy with long hair and grey beard and leather vest and truckers cap who offered a moving version of "Live like You Were Dying," Tim McGraw's song about his father's, baseball player Tug McGraw, getting cancer.
The bar by that point exuded a warmth and spirit that we (or I, at least - I shan't speak for my comrades) felt a surprising and comforting kinship with, like, hey, I could hang here, I think. Something like the sentimentality the traveler feels when he finally grasps some insight into the spirit of some fascinating foreign land, and is already, before even departing, plotting his next venture back.
As if to raise the bar (so to speak) even farther, the bar community around us then asserted itself when the everyone joined together and sang in festive, festival-like unison, "Save a horse, ride a cowboy."
Okay, at that point we decided it was time to leave. As a traveler, sometimes it's best to leave the natives alone to their most intimate rituals. But, still, I thought to myself as I made a point to offer my personal "thanks" and "good t'meet cha"s to Bob and the drunk guy and the bartender - who, I should note, after her initial chill had taken exceptional care of us - that as bizarre as it is on the surface, this place is a whole hell of a lot more fun and healthy and convivial and worldly than many of the "better" bars in town, with their expensive drinks and TVs babbling over the tops of withdrawn faces buried in their beers.
Karaoke at the VFW? Who would've thunk it? And like all traveling, I'm better for having gone there. And, hell, maybe I'll take another trip there soon.

Ken Wright travels within walking distance of his home in Durango. His latest book is The Monkey Wrench Dad: Dispatches from the Backyard Frontline (Raven's Eye Press). Learn more at monkeywrenchdad.com.