Butte Beat: Is The Grass Always Greener? The Other Side

BUTTE, MT - We all miss the old days.

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Though, obviously, just like "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," the phrase "the old days" can refer to a million different eras depending on who you ask. One thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that—no matter how old you are or what generation you belong to—nostalgia takes precedence and leads everyone to believe that "the old days" were better times than they are now. In other words, humans are impossible to please.

That's to the surprise of no one. It makes sense, even if it is a little depressing: the more life we live, the harder we are to please. Don't believe me? Riddle me this: who would it be easier to make smile: an old man, or a young child? Exactly.

I believe it has something to do with the long-studied and ultimately-proven loss of innocence we all experience. Of course, like everything else, there is a unique beauty that comes with it, but it also leads us to the paradox of age: the younger you are, the older you want to be, and vise versa.

So we all miss the old days. But sometimes, hidden in the cozy little corners of the world, we can find and capture that nostalgia, usually within antique shops, DVD sections, and adult film stores (my parents thought I should learn early). Unusually, you can bottle up that nostalgia within movie theaters, hometown parks, and lonely restaurants.

That's when I realized why my last visit to Pork Chop John's on Mercury Street in Uptown Butte hit me in the feels so hard, as the kids say. I felt a pang of nostalgia, bringing me back to old little joints that know what they do best and just keep doing it; places where you can sit at the bar and, instead of ordering a drink, you order a burger or pork chop sammie; an environment containing nothing but hard workers on a lunch break, a gallon of grease, and a ton of good eatin'.

Though I hadn't physically experienced a hole-in-the-wall (literally) quite like Pork Chop John's until I walked through its...erm, well, door, I had experienced it's essence through classic artworks, golden-era films, and photo galleries—all powerful and favored triggers of nostalgia. You can still feel the charcoal and dust being brushed off the miners' shoulders, which only adds to the overall experience.

All in all, though we are all old and—at least sometimes—hard to please, luckily there are still places like Pork Chop John's around to remind us that maybe the grass really is greener on the other side.