'Hippies Use Backdoor' at Dusty Boots

Recently, I attended the Weed Bluegrass Festival in the mountains south of Cloudcroft.

Weed’s population of 60 swelled to 500 for the event, including a couple I knew from Elida. Mitch Hibbard, whom I’d interviewed for a preview article about the event for “Enchantment Magazine,” and I met for the first time and visited like old friends.

Despite my reputation as a rock-and-roll party animal, I enjoy rock, pop, reggae, country, bluegrass, blues, jazz, zydeco, even a little rap.

While some youngsters might stereotype the folks at the family-friendly festival as square, I admire them as hardworking, genuine people enjoying witty music about real life.

Although a beer-a-year is about my limit, at the Western Bar in Cloudcroft I met mostly sober people.

An exception was a bleach-blonde buying shots for everyone incarcerated by her rowdy voice. Soon, she was gently encouraged to leave while she could still drive. As her pickup faded from sight, her voice still rang out.

A sign at the bar entrance read: “Husband Day Care Center. Need time to relax? Need time to yourself? Want to go shopping? Leave your husband with us at Western Bar. You only pay for his drinks!”

A sign inside read: “Hangovers Installed and Serviced.” The bar’s ceiling and walls were covered with $1 bills signed by customers with their names or messages (“Gallows Bound,” “Dean Loves Anna,” “Missoula Smoke Jumpers”), date and hometown.

Guy, a 55-year-old home builder from Cloudcroft, told me every five years the bar — which only accepts cash — removes the bills and donates them to charity.

Married to a woman from South Africa and with four daughters, Guy said he could make more money building houses in cities, but living in Cloudcroft was worth the tradeoff.

Social media and school rules have changed the way he raises his two younger daughters. He is afraid to discipline them too severely for fear of social media attention and being reported to the schools.

Wearing a Depeche Mode t-shirt, he and his wife and children — unlike with his parents — attend concerts together to see acts from both generations — including Depeche Mode and Coldplay.

Blake, about 21 who was apparently dating one of Guy’s daughters, dropped out of New Mexico State University his sophomore year as an English major to pursue his music dream. Wearing a Pink Floyd shirt and bandanna barely concealing his rock-star looks, he said he couldn’t see accumulating huge debt to pursue an unappealing teaching career.

Working mornings as a cook at a nearby café, Blake said some co-workers with master’s degrees are saddled with lifetime student loans.

Three middle-aged white ladies from Texas raised a sarcastic toast to their jerk ex-husbands and guys in general. They laughed when I said I better sit that one out.

After leaving, I met a guy from Long Island, New York, sitting on a sidewalk bench. We visited while his Golden Doodle (golden retriever/poodle) greeted me with full-body hugs and slobbers. The New Yorker said he loved Cloudcroft’s laid-backness. His SUV’s back wheel cover read: “Not All Who Wander Are Lost.”

Later, at the Dusty Boots Café an entrance sign read: “Hippies Use Backdoor: No Exceptions.”

I froze for a minute, then remembered I was a bluegrass fan.

Contact Wendel Sloan at:

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