The Jackson that was

by Doug Crowe
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 12:53 PM MDT

I miss Jackson!

Yes, I know it's still there, nestled in southern Teton County, but it isn't really the Jackson we knew and loved, is it?

Today, it is kinda like a bit of Colorado drifted up to lodge itself against the Tetons. Maybe we should rename it Aspen North. It has that same "Look at me, I've got more money than you do" feel about it that makes your skin crawl.

The indigenous folks are nearly gone now, replaced by millionaires who are in the process of being squeezed out by billionaires.

The last time I was in that country, there were so damn many Hummers on the road that it took nearly two hours to drive from Hoback Junction to Moose.

Along the way, I saw a woman strutting down Cache Street wearing a coyote fur hat, a bobcat fur coat, skin-tight neon green ski pants and red cowboy boots. I nearly swallowed my chew.

It was not always thus. Back in the Pleistocene when I was posing as a student at NCHS, there was nothing better than to gather up a few buddies and roar out of Casper on a Friday afternoon bound for Jackson.

We'd drive the 300 miles on black ice just to ski Snow King for a few hours. When the slope closed, we'd head for the Wort Hotel. There was gambling in Jackson then. The tables were in the basement underneath the bar.

A guy we knew dealt blackjack, and we'd shill for him on Saturday nights. At the ripe old age of 17, life did not get much better than making high dollar bets with house money and drinking for free.

In the fall, we would make the same trip just to hunt elk for a weekend. There weren't many elk areas close to Casper then.

And if there had been, we probably would have driven to Jackson anyway, just because it was a "cool" thing to do.

We certainly didn't do much damage to the elk.

But at least we were out there with malice aforethought, and occasionally one of us would blunder into an old, infirm bull.

Later I would guide hunters for Frank Foster, an outfitter on Horse Creek south of Jackson. One of the other guides was Lester May. When Lester wasn't guiding hunters, he was the mayor of Jackson.

It was great to go to town with him and Frank because they knew everybody. After a couple of falls hanging around the local bars, I did too.

One of my favorite recollections is of a tourist we met in the Cowboy Bar. The lady was from back East, Massachusetts if memory serves me correctly.

When she discovered Lester was the mayor, she congratulated him for requiring drunks to wear blaze orange so they could be easily identified.

Still later, in February of 1961, I was married in the little log church on Glenwood Street. My lady and I were in Jackson for the cutter races and decided to get hitched.

We were nearly broke (as usual), so our wedding dinner consisted of a hamburger at the Rancher. The place was full of people we knew.

When the word got out that we'd tied the knot, they chipped in to send a bottle of champagne to our table.

Even so, the consensus amongst those revelers was that Goody Two Shoes had married the Filthy Beast, and it wouldn't last the year. The fact is we recently celebrated our 47th Hamburger & Champagne Anniversary Dinner.

I don't want to get too smug about it though. The long-suffering woman may shoot me yet!

So it is that I have cherished memories of the "Jackson That Was." At one time it was my dream to live there.

But that dream is gone and today, I wouldn't live in the "Jackson That Is" if you gave me the place!

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