This article is continued from last week.
“In all the years I worked at the Claimjumper, I always said I was going to write a book [about the shenanigans at the Down Under private club in the late 1970s and early 1980s], but [then] I’d have to leave town,” former bartender Debbie Hansen said recently.
Well, Debbie moved to Reno 17 years ago and we’re still waiting for that book. In the meantime, we’ll have to read between the lines.
Debbie described Lloyd Stevens, the Claimjumper’s low-key co-owner, as the Down Under’s grand marshal.
“He was such a gem,” she said. “And he was so quiet. If there was ever a fight and he was sitting in there, he always knew we could take care of it. He would just sit at the table.”
A member of the local theatre group Park City Players, Lloyd once played Oscar Madison opposite Jere Calmes’s Felix Unger in a production of “The Odd Couple.”
Yes, Jere Calmes was also a regular at the Down Under, along with fellow thespians Val Thurnell and Richard Scott. Calmes was known to team up with Father Pat Carley of St. Mary’s Catholic Church after the regular musicians had packed up. “They would sing Irish songs ’til we threw them out,” said Debbie’s former coworker, Karen Warren.
There was Darryl, the flamboyant Alamo Saloon bartender who wore twin bandoliers loaded with mini-bottles instead of bullets, often sitting next to Dick Wilde, the president of Silver King Bank.
There were the politicians, including Mayor Hal Taylor and a revolving cast of city council members.
“Council members and City staff and reporters and the ski resort owner would take equal turns buying a round,” Park Record columnist Teri Orr reminisced in 2013. “There, the real issues of the day were slugged out and shouted down and building plans and water systems were sketched out with equal style on the back of cocktail napkins.”
Often among the City staff was Tom Clyde, then the City attorney, now a gentleman farmer and Park Record columnist. Tom was even interviewed for his City attorney job in the Down Under, as it was more inviting than what City Hall looked like at the time. The reporters included Blair Feulner, the baritone voice of KPCW, who would sniff for scraps he could turn into scoops, and The Park Record’s affable David “Flash” Fleisher, who would get up and shake it – a tambourine, that is – to the melodies of Kat and Mickey James.
Credit: Courtesy of Karen Warren.
There was airline pilot Bob Powers, who would entertain people on the piano when Kat and Mickey were off duty.
Then there were the celebrities, including actors Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Kate Jackson (who owned a home in Park Meadows), and Dan Haggerty (who played the bearded Grizzly Adams in the locally produced TV series).
“Dan Haggerty was in there almost every night,” Debbie said. “[One night] he was drinking flaming Southern Comfort shots… at the end of the bar and he caught his beard on fire.”
Musicians Kat and Mickey James were often joined by well-intentioned patrons. Then came that magical August night in 1980 when they shared the limelight with ‘outlaw’ country singer/songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, who had played at an outdoor concert at ParkWest the night before.
“I didn’t know who he was,” Karen confessed. “He just came in and sat at the bar at, like, four o’clock on a Sunday. There was nobody there. And I served him. And I could tell he … didn’t want to be bothered, and so I just left him alone. And around six o’clock Mickey James came in and started jumping up and down, going, ‘It’s Jerry Jeff! It’s Jerry Jeff!’
“And so the next thing I knew Jerry Jeff Walker was up there playing with Kat and Mickey. And the word went out on the radio … and we must have had, I don’t know, three or four hundred people, at least. And I called in everybody I could to help. And Kat and Mickey would be behind the bar helping me bartend. And girls from other bars came in who were cocktail waitresses and I made them work.
“When it was time for last call, nobody would leave. And the cops came in about 2:30 and … I said, ‘We can’t get people out!’ And they said, ‘OK, we’ll give you ’til four.’ And he just kept playing and singing ’til four o’clock. … That was just the most amazing night.”
Debbie said the golden age of the Down Under lasted until about 1983, when locals started drifting away to other bars such as Sneakers at the Park City Racquet Club (now the MARC). However, the club survived until 2006, providing a platform for many other musicians.
Sadly, several participants in this years-long group therapy session left us recently, including Kat James in 2022, Lloyd Stevens last November, and Jere Calmes this past St. Patrick’s Day.
“[Jere] was such a prankster,” Karen said. “He always said, ‘Nobody cares. Nobody cares.’ That was his saying. And so, at his funeral, everybody said, ‘Nobody cares.’”
Nothing could have been farther from the truth.