The Honky Tonkers

There’s nothing like a few beers and good old country music to relax and forget about your problems. Add in a little two stepping and a really good loud live country music band in a dim lit, smoke filled honky tonk, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a stress free hell raising night of fun and enjoyment. Here’s the story of our honky tonk days.

The Honky Tonkers

 

In early, 1998, my engineering job required that Pam and I move to Houston for six months to work in a contractors office. When the job was over, we moved back to Bartlesville and we found all our clogging groups had phased out. We tried to revive interest, but it just didn’t happen. Pam and I started going out on Friday nights two stepping at some of the local honky tonks. My job was particularly stressful at this time, so I looked forward to drinking a few beers and kicking up my heels on Friday or Saturday night. We found one country band that we really liked that played all over the area called “Cotton Creek”. This particular band had a lead singer guitar player called Dennis. Dennis was a real cowboy who shoed horses for a living. He had a handle bar mustache and always had a cowboy hat on. There was also an older guy in the band called Norman who played the fiddle who was a real Bob Wills fan. When Dennis started the evening he would drink beer along as the played and sang. As the evening went on, he would get louder and his music would get better and better. I got to where I liked his version of the songs he sang better than the original artists version. When he sang “Two Piña Coladas “, “Paper Rosie”, “Eleven Roses”, “Cinderella”, and “Lilies White Lies”, it was pure two stepper heaven. The whole dance floor would be whooping and hollering and I was yelling right along with them. With a few beers and this kind of fun, the stress just disappeared. We enjoyed the music so much we got one of their schedules and followed them all over North East Oklahoma for two or three years. On one occasion, Pam’s brother, Bob, his wife, Brenda, and Pam’s mother, Ruby, were visiting and we took them to the American Legion in Caney, Kansas to see Cotton Creek play. They loved the music and danced all night. Pam’s mother was 78 years old at the time and there was a little old man that kept asking her to dance, but she turned him down each time. She wouldn’t admit it, but she loved every minute of it. The band later changed their name to ” The Cowboy Ride” and sometime after that Dennis had a bad heart attack and stopped singing for a while. We regretted it deeply as this and some leg problems for me sort of ended the honky tonk phase of our lives.

Pam and I heading for a night of two stepping to the Cotton Creek country band.

Bill enjoying a night at the Honky Tonk with all the work related stress long gone!

Thanks for reading The Honky Tonkers,

Hawg Jaw Bill