Wild ways of the Wild West.

Saw a cowboy movie on TV the other day which featured that classic cowboy movie scene in the bar where someone shouts ‘boys, the drinks are on me’ and I began to think about the problems that lead to. Invariably when it happened the bar was full and it wasn’t always the richest man in town who made the offer. The invitation was always met with unbridled enthusiasm but given the frequency with which it seemed to happen in you wonder weather many cowboys ever had to actually buy a drink themselves. Would someone really have shouted ‘the drinks are on me’ that statement could be construed by a half cut cowboy to mean that the rest of the night’s drinks were being paid for. Perhaps ‘the next drink is on me’ would have been a more prudent announcement. You never hear that so lets assume that in the Wild West whenever someone said ‘the drinks are on me’ everyone except a newbie from back east would have taken it to mean the next drink of their choice was complimentary. I say their choice but from my observations the only booze available in the Wild West was whiskey. So lets assume it is one drink per person. Who was supposed to police that? The bartender? If a wealthy benefactor was paying for the drinks them it is in the interests of the owner to dish out as much free booze as he can. And even if he did try to make sure no greedy guts came up for second helping a lot of cowboys pretty much looked the same under those big hats. Ok, lets say everyone at the bar gets one free drink of whiskey. There didn’t seem to be a top shelf back then. The whiskey bottle was always directly behind the barman next to the big mirror, which always got smashed by a flying chair before the end of the film. So it was one free drink of plain old Wild West whiskey, which always seemed to cost a buck. But how come the barman always just started dishing out the whiskey to the eager patrons without first getting the bloke who made the offer to put a large sack of gold coins behind the bar. Or his credit card. Or at least have a brief discussion with him about how he intended to settle the bill. Maybe in the excitement of the moment the barman just forgot. Remember, a ‘the drinks are on me’ moment was usually triggered by good news. Anything ranging from ‘May Beth’s agreed to marry me boys’ right up to ‘ Sheriff Brady just gunned down big bad Buster Watson and the extra man with the rifle who was hidden in the upstairs window. With Buster Watson out of the way, this town is now free to live in peace without worrying about his marauding band of thugs who, now their boss is dead will naturally wander off to some other unlucky shithole.’ No wonder in the heat of the moment the barman just started pouring without thought to securing some form of guarantee of payment. And that, I suspect, is the reason the Wild West is littered with ghost towns. Because after one too many ‘drinks are on me’ sessions the local bar would go bust. With nowhere to play cards, watch showgirls, drink booze and smash up all the furniture, what point was there staying in town. Maybe the West was just a little too wild for it’s own good.