It’s true. I’m from Butte, Montana. And I’ve heard it all so if you want to repeat it, it’s okay, I know where you’re going with it: “Butt Montana.” Ha ha. I’m laughing on the inside.

And yes, it’s probably not the most beautiful place on earth, even prior to be named as a Superfund site (once, birds landed on the water in the now-filled Berkeley Pit and promptly died). Alas. It’s where our family usually heads back for the Fourth of July to watch the fireworks and be small town America-y and have a picnic in the backyard with the branch of our family who still live there.

Being the Fourth of July weekend, I get a little nostalgic for the place, which is why it seemed fitting to pull this one out of the postcard storehouse:

A GALLOWS FRAME, one of many mine elevator towers still standing on the slopes of the “Richest Hill on Earth”–alias Butte, Montana–stands as a nostalgic reminder of the days when elevators carried men, mules, and equipment up and down mine shafts as deep as half a mile in search of copper, silver, and gold.

(c)Lawrence Dodge (1994)

I’m at the Blue Venue Coffee Shop. I’ve been here before a long time ago and I am honestly surprised that it is still in business. It’s next to the Irish Times Tavern and so I think that people get drunk there and come here hungover. This guy just came in and is telling the Trio of Bar Whores about how the bartender, Josh, beat him up in the alley last night. His shirt got all ripped open and those girls are cooing and gooing about this terrible crime. “I’m sore, man.” Butte doesn’t change. It’s a tough town, even if it does have a coffee shop. Now he’s telling the story again to another guy. People keep asking him, “For what?” “I don’t know man.” “Are you pressing charges?” “No man.”

See. We’re tough people. So I wouldn’t make that Butt joke if I were you.