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Two-step Tradition
Rebecca Hartwell
A firm hand clasps my back, stabilizing my tense muscles simultaneously as spin momentum thrusts me backwards. I follow awkward and stiff: shuffle, lift right heel, now tiptoe, swoop, and dip to the rhythm mentored by the guitar's twang. Wide brimmed hats twirl with beer bottles. Faces chuckle with moustache stubble, and tight denim hugs hips high. They sway, shift, and lift. Wastes clasped with magnificent buckles twinkle in the neon bar lights, and the dance floor glows red and dusty. My hippy girl attire clashes with the trim western ware of the crowd. My pastel skirt flares, exposing chacoed feet, clapping awkward amongst the precise, steel-toed riding boots. My dancer, Jim, leans back smirking. His plaid shirt buttoned tight on his swelled belly, his jeans hug little legs. They twist slightly, composed, while the arms swoop around wildly, hokey to the loop notes of the electric piano. I find myself, dizzy and amused, in the last cowboy bar in Montana.
The two-stepping performed on the dance floor of Stacy's Old Faithful is strangely mesmerizing with its practiced grace. Each couple waggles or bounces according to their own stylistic measure. My favorite dancing partners to watch are an older, thin couple who dance confident and smooth. On light toes, they spin slowly, chins lifted; they float across the dance floor, gazing at one another's half-smile. With the final strum of every song, the couple leans in to brush a sweet, routine kiss on one another's cheek. I interpret the styled dance as a reflection of western tradition as both a mindset and a mode of life. With every shuffle and nod on the dance floor, I see the accomplished roundup march of a rancher on a frosty morning, or a gruff, merry salute of fourth generation landowners on a street corner. Tradition imbeds itself in the identity of a community. It infuses meaning into common activities, generates nostalgia, and becomes a way for communities to define themselves. Yet along with established traditions comes a kind of desperation, when tradition becomes a mean in itself. In other words, tradition becomes upheld for its own sake, perpetuated whether or not it continues to make sense with time. Tradition rejects progressive change because change stirs the settled brew of a community and calls into question the validity of the town's identity. By participating in the frequent festivities of the cowboy bar, those attending make an effort to preserve a culture that faces deterioration at every turn in the West. With a shift from resource-based dependence on the land for income to government wages, non-employment, and retirement money, the self-image of westerners as workers of the land and self-providing individualists diminishes, and with little reassurance for resource-based wages in the future, the substance of community culture hollows.
Some towns revamp. In Bozman, Montana, a two story food co-op glints metal corduroy walls. A pastel chalk board informs its shoppers of the organic latte options: wheat germ or soy special. And copper-plated cowboy cutouts leap from flower boxes on Main Street. Unlike Bozman, with the fortune of a youth population drawn in by the Universtiy, many other small western towns lack the potential for tourism and steadily lose their younger citizens to the dazzle of far away cities. Should we initiate economic boom plans in all western towns? Organizations such as the Sonoran Institute see the value in economic preservation through the development of a service-based economy, such as Jackson, Wyoming. Others see these rural towns as a wasting place for stubborn ranchers who damage the landscape and pollute the riparian areas. These people propose that the dissolution of a rural town would be no phenomenal loss. I question this perspective as we travel through the towns, guzzling gas and smirking at signs from our patriotic suburbans. Is the loss of traditional culture something to be mourned and defended, or is it simply time to retire the fight and let reality maneuver its course, whether that means abandoned ghost towns or flashy tourist hubs?
Tonight, Stacy's bar hops with energy, and my dancing partner is no parched rancher. Young and trimmed, Jim grins as he heaves himself back into the bar chair for a cold beer after dancing. We attempt to chat. Shouting over the music I inquire about his life and his hobbies. Noticing very few younger chaps like him in the small towns, I am curious how the remaining youth spend their time. In response to my questions, I receive a twenty minute description of how to cling to a bucking horse bareback using specific hand jabs and knots. I nod. He is barely audible against the overpowering noise of the country band, yet his gestures are informative as he rides the bar seat like an unruly bronco, tilting and grasping an imaginary mane.
We head back out to the dance floor for another spin, and I continue to probe him about his views on ranching in Montana. He pauses. "You aren't a member of the Sierra Club are you?" he presses loudly, poised mid-spin with my hand held upward. "No," I say, smiling by default. He breaks gaze and looks upward. In an unexpected motion he grasps the air above his head then pulls his elbow to his chest in a gesture of triumph, as one might see a baseball coach leap from the shade of a dugout and yank the dusty air to his heart in aggressive delight. He did not ask whether I had a boyfriend, if I like beer, have served time, had siblings, or any other normal introductory questions. Being an environmentalist is the one criterion for my acceptance, and, for him, the Sierra Club defines being green. Now that he confirms my lack of involvement with a specific environmental organization, all is fare game.
In that awkward break, I do not tell Jim about the Sierra Club sticker that sits perched in the corner of my rear car window. Why don't I vocalize my environmental values? Am I embarrassed of my identity as a poor two-stepper with bare toes? As the moment passes, we kick-step sideways to a new tune, and all I care about is dancing. "I can assert my views another time," I think. Tonight, I want to sit back and absorb the atmosphere.
Stacy's Old Faithful draws men burdened with change for respite in beer and a traditional setting. It also attracts newlyweds, young rodeo riders like Jim, and inquisitive Westies and their professors. As the West refuses or embraces the changes that arise, pockets of traditional culture can be found in places such as Stacy's Old Faithful. These places invite the crossing of cultural borders, creating the space for a common understanding, even if that understanding lasts only in the momentary pride of a well-executed partner spin.