On a Friday in early April, the happy hour crowd’s just getting its buzz at the Cactus Moon Saloon, a blue-collar mega sports bar situated in a strip mall in Everett, Wash. As “Big Bad John” and “Hot Rod Lincoln” blast over the TouchTunes jukebox, wisecracking waitresses dispense foaming pints drawn from a “beer tower” offering 20 varieties, from Modelo and IPA to local favorite Manny’s Pale Ale. Ringing the giant U-shaped room are pulsating neon logos hailing assorted liquors and beers interspersed among 31 TV screens displaying such fare as University of Evansville versus Indiana University baseball and the Wells Fargo golf tourney. Folks attired in sneakers, T-shirts, and baseball caps take aim at a choice of seven dartboards.
But the Cactus Moon isn’t just a watering hole—it’s a great forum for learning about what’s gone wrong at the Boeing Co. As a favorite hangout for retired and mainly boomer and Gen X workers from the planemaker’s nearby Everett plant, the place is a fount for up close and personal accounts of a once-fabled culture’s decline from the people who’ve lived it.
