There's a little bar that I like to frequent on the long road trips to Seattle
Four numbers over the door read 1901
That's twelve years before the town was founded
104 years is a long time for a pub
A heavy wooden bar trimmed in brass
Modern tracklights hang from a lintel of hand-carved hops
To light neon colored bottles of vodka and a chalkboard of today's specials
The pool table's red, the curtains plaid
The creaking floors are dark with lighter footpaths
Whatever varnish originally there replaced by a century of lesser stains.
There's a train switching outside
Letters on boxcars rippling through century old glass
You can't get cable here
So a snowy rendition of Jeopardy fills the TV
Baseball fans gather round outside
Listening to car radios through open windows
There are hardly any signs of modern regulation
A roped off area in the lot where drinks theoretically stay
A scribbled sign reading "All minors must use the other door"
Even though both doors open on the same room.
There are old men at the common table
Hearing aids, a rolling oxygen can
Small glasses of beer not charged for
Talking loud of present crises and long-ago associates
"Of course, he's dead now, his son took over the business"
How many friends have sat on this aged barstool?
How many loggers, railroaders and farmers
Came before those of today?
Do they gather to reminisce late at night
When the room is shadowed and closed?
Do they talk of the great war or the second one?
Do they collect in the lot to listen to the Babe
As a steam engine thunders by on the point of the Owl?
Perhaps they're here now, marveling at what their home has become.