One very old man would seat himself at the bar, name himself to be ‘The Minder for Cottonpaugh,’ and demand free beer. Regulars seated nearby bought him beers, addressed him as Our Minder, though none there had any idea what ‘minder’ could mean. He would rave on the state of affairs and give commands of one kind or another. No one played attention. It was all a lot of fun. Once in a while if ‘Our Minder’ got too drunk and talkative several determined young men dressed like security guards would come in, smile politely, and gently but firmly escort him out. We thought Minder to be the embarrassing member of some important family.

Dance Master for the Legislature up at Bear, he was once anyway. He started as Spotlight Operator and worked his way up. In the early days they would spotlight certain key couples on the dance floor to see if there was progress on the bill being worked over. The Legislators didn’t like the spotlight and tried to get it turned off. The Governor wanted it on to make them work harder. As a compromise it was agreed that the spotlight would only come on once for each dance. And only for critical disputes. Some bills are said to have been “spotlighted” through. We call him Dance Master.

Often seated at the bar next to Dance Master is Werds the novelist. Everyone agrees Werds is a ‘good writer.’ At times he would bring pages of some of his work.  Most at the bar who read parts would say it was good, fun, amusing, and so on. Werds wrote one full book he published himself. He sold copies and some book stores took some from him to sell. And some did sell. What was disappointing for Werds was that people would tell him they liked what they read so far. But no matter how long they had his book, no one ever said they finished reading it all.

Another regular was Hardrock, in a way one of the ‘legends’ at the card table.  But you can’t really say he played. The ‘real’ legends did not consider him of their own. Hardrock would fold every hand he was dealt until he got a very good hand. Then he bet all in and when he did the other players would fold. Nobody can remember Hardrock finishing a hand. Years ago when he first started to play he got a very good hand, bet a lot, and won. Then on an equally good hand, bet a lot, and lost. He never got over that loss and since waited for the hand that would bring back that feeling he had when he won that big hand those years ago.

At times a man would come in we called “LoneStar.” He wore traditional cattle working clothes, unusually worn and dusty. His boots too had seen much. When someone wondered if there was much work with cattle these days he answered ‘yes if you can find the bad ones and bring them back. Mans’ work.’ He always had a stack of wanted posters with pictures of cows on them. There at the bar he would study the posters, sometimes talking to them. I don’t think he liked it that Rusti had several of these cow posters up on the wall behind the bar. He seldom spoke. The other regulars left him alone.

There was Slim. He spent his life exploring the most isolated parts of the desert in an old sun burned truck. He thought he could take people out on tours. But few wanted to see isolated desert, even if there were ‘spirits’ out there. Slim was kind of a draw for local commerce because people thought it interesting that there was this character who roamed the desert, even if they did not want to go out there with him. He did get a job after a while ‘patrolling.’ This was a kindness by some in government because there was nothing much there to patrol for.