I was looking to see more of Talkeetna on my first night there. Asking around at the first place, I really didn’t get any actionable advice. I only understood that "everybody goes to somewhere" and "somewhere else is really dark." So I set out on my own, which is easy enough when the entire town is only a few blocks small. The first watering hole in which I stopped was a nice place, but packed with tourists, climbers, and the like. It was too crowded and didn’t suit my mood this evening. I passed by a pizza place with signs declaring "now open" and "beer on tap," but the only customers were a pair of teenagers. Looking up another street, I saw a small, dark A-frame with a little neon sign near its peak. I walked that way and had to really get close to confirm that it actually was a bar—the Tee Pee.
It takes a while for your eyes to adjust since it really is dark inside. There were only a handful of locals inside: a Vietnam vet, one of the ladies from the Latitude, a couple of climbers, and a 50-ish guy with perfectly molded, wavy silver hair. I first struck up a conversation with the vet and ended up drinking shots with him and his buddy. Fortunately, I was invited to play a game of doubles pool: Hair and I verses the bar girl and another fellow. Something had happened in Hair’s life, or he had just grown tired. He took early retirement from his government job and now spends summers bartending at the plush resort just outside of town here and winters teaching English at a little school in central Mexico. He seemed like a great guy who was enjoying his life to the fullest.
Of course, drinking tends to make the people you meet at bars seem profound. A group on tourists in their early 20s entered. "What beers do you have on tap?" The bartender said "Just that one" and pointed to the Hefewisen. It was a nice Hefe, too; a quality brew selected specifically by the owner to be his only one on tap. They promptly left. Not a big enough selection, I suppose. Finally, our game ended with me sinking my team’s last ball. Somehow, though, I had missed a rule that had emerged and hadn’t "called" my shot. We didn’t win, but winning isn’t everything. I left the really, really dark bar and weaved my way back across town to my hotel.