An ode to cleavage, hogs and Jager

On Sunday, I said farewell to a Valley institution, Greasewood Flat, the outdoorsy, biker-ish bar near Pinnacle Peak in Scottsdale.

We were there to hear Prescott's own Cheektones, featuring the incomparable Donny Cheek. I've got the tee shirt. But we also were there to bid adieu to north Scottsdale's last link to a its laid-back, pre-Troon past. The iconic watering hole closes on March 31, a victim to death taxes and crazy high north Scottsdale property values.

You just don't see that much black leather worn without irony by middle-aged men in Scottsdale anymore. Likewise, you just don't seen that many women of a certain age stuffed with such admirable dexterity in bandanna-sized motorcycle touring tops anymore. I didn't frequent the joint a lot. But you just don't forget a place with rows of $100,000 road hogs parked outside.

Sunday at Greasewood Flat was a crowded, beery, happy, cozy, sunny farewell to the only place left in Scottsdale where the house wine is Jägermeister. People who really shouldn't be dancing like that anymore will likely be visiting their chiropractors in the days to come. They'll say it was worth it.

I know people who not so long ago would ride horses to Greasewood Flat. It was said that finding Greasewood through the still-undeveloped north Scottsdale desert highlands on horseback was an easy venture: either your horse would sniff out the bar's water trough, or the rider would sniff out the grilling burgers and the ever-present scent of spilled draft beer. There is much to be said of hidden places you can reach without really knowing how to get there.

This guy, I think, would have approved of Greasewood Flat.

I used to complain that a trip to Greasewood Flat was a trip too far. You had to travel half way to Albuquerque to sit at rickety picnic tables, drink draft beer and eat (admittedly superior) cheeseburgers. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but the question almost always left un-addressed was a not-insignificant one: How are you supposed to get back after all that beer and ribaldry? After all those shots of "house wine?"

After March 31, there is no point any more in worrying over such things. I feel self-conscious suggesting the world is a lesser place without a hidden, rickety former bunkhouse filled with biker chrome and cleavage. But it is.