Bob Pavlovich

Photo Credit: Montana Standard

Oral History Transcript of Bob Pavlovich

Interviewer: Aubrey Jaap
Interview Date: October 26th, 2018
Location: Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives
Transcribed: November 2019 by Adrian Kien

Jaap: Alright, so we can go ahead and get started. It’s pretty casual. So I’m just going to start. If you want to start, Bob, would you tell me a little bit about your parents?

Pavlovich: My parents came from Yugoslavia. Basically, one came from Dubrovnik on the Adriatic Sea. My mother came from there. She came from a family with five girls in it. She was the middle girl. She was the only girl that got to come to America. I think the year was 1913. My dad was born up in Croatia, same country. But up by the city of Skopje. And he was basically a farmer. He lived inland. And really I don’t know much about his family. He had a brother, a twin brother, they told me. But I never met him. The only one I ever met, I met a nephew of his when I took my mother and my sister back to Yugoslavia in 1997. They had an excursion going back. The people in Montana, Croatian and Serbian people got a trip lined up to fly back to Yugoslavia. And we met up in Great Falls. And I think there was about 140 - 160 of us had a charter plane. It was a nice flight.

We flew from there to Canada. Then from there straight across the Atlantic. We landed in Holland, in Amsterdam. And then from there we flew into Zagreb, Yugoslavia and then from there everyone went their own way. Then me and my mother and sister flew down to Dubrovnik. And we were met there by her two sisters, the oldest one and the youngest one. The two in between died. I never did know my grandparents because they lived over there and they never did get to this country. And neither did her sisters. But she had, like I say, five girls in the family. She was the middle one. The oldest one had five boys and they all died at the age of 21. I don’t know why, I have no idea, but I was told that. The second oldest one raised a big family but she died young so the oldest one raised that family. So we can go from there. I met a few of my cousins over there. Quite a few of them actually. We were there for almost three weeks and then we flew back. It was great for my mother to get back to see her family. What was left of it.

Jaap: Was she able to go back often?

Pavlovich: No. It was the only time we went back.

Jaap: But that was the only time your mother got to see her family?

Pavlovich: Yeah, when we got back. It was in June. We left in the early part of June and got back near the end of June. Right after the 4th of July, she got sick and she died that Labor Day weekend. But she knew she was going to die. They wanted to keep her over there for a couple of months and then send her back in November or December. And she says, “No. I want to go home.” She knew that she didn’t feel good and she wanted to come home and that was her wishes so I brought her home. And then she died over the Labor Day Weekend of 1997. I’m trying to think how old she was. She was born in 1893. So, go from there. She was 20 years old when she got here, just about. She landed in New York and she didn’t like New York, couldn’t stand it. So they shipped her to Montana. There were a lot of Croatian people, Slavic people, both sides that lived in Montana. They shipped her here and she met some people here. Then she met her first husband here, Mr. Yerkich. What the hell was his name? John? No. Peter. Peter Yerkich.

And she met him and I’d assume they got married in 1916. And they lived in Washington, on a farm for quite a while. Things weren’t good there so they moved to Butte. My brother Pete, half-brother, Pete Yerkich, was born in 1917. My brother Joe was born in 1918. My sister Stella was born in 1922. Mr. Yerkich died in 1924. In 1924, my dad, John Pavlovich was a boarder in the house where my mother and dad, step-dad, Mr. Yerkich lived. And he, they grew up together in the old country. They were families that lived close together up on a split on the farming land. They were very close neighbors. And then my dad married my mother in 1926, two years after Mr. Yerkich died. Then my brother George was born in 1927. I was born in ’29.

My dad died in 1934, ten years apart. That was the last time she got married. After that she kind of ran a boarding house. And so she was a single mother, just lived by herself, raising the family. She was a bootlegger - made her own wine, made her own grappa. Did all the things like that. We used to buy two tons of grapes every year and make 200 gallons of wine which she had to permit to make. She had no permit to make the grappa. She had a still. She got caught sometime in the ’30’s. I don’t know when exactly. She got caught bootlegging and they broke the still and that was the end. She paid a fine in Butte.

The feds came in, I remember that. I was probably seven or eight years old. And we were in the courthouse. I remember the judge telling the two federal agents that came in and arrested my mother, he told them, “I never want to see you two federal people in Butte, Montana again and do something like this to a woman who is raising a family. If I hear and see you in Butte, Montana again, there’s a cell in the jail down here that I will lock you in and nobody will know where you’re at.” That’s exactly what he told them.

Jaap: That’s what the judge said to those federal people.

Pavlovich: That’s what the judge said, yes.

Jaap: So he was sympathetic to your mother.

Pavlovich: Well, the people, yes. You bet. And that was it. They left. I don’t know if they ever came back again or not. But my mother had a fine of $100. And all of the people that were in the courtroom at that time were either Croatian or Serbian people, but they were all from Yugoslavia just about, or Austria, or Hungary or wherever it was. And they all chipped in and paid the $100 fine. Yeah. They paid the fine. But my mother, I never realized this, when she was about 19 years old, when she got to this country, she worked over there in the old city, in Dubrovnik, the walled-in city, she worked for a doctor and that was a seafaring port.

So all of the sailors and that used to come in there when they had their fights and everything. When my mother got to this country, she could speak seven languages fluently. She could speak all of the dialects in Yugoslavia. She could speak Greek, Hungarian, Romanian, Austrian, German, and Italian. I didn’t know that until I got real old. I didn’t know that. I always used to wonder how my mother used to go over to see Mrs. Faroni and they would speak Italian. I used to wonder how do these women get along? They don’t know, not speaking too much English. She only knew what I taught her and that was it. I was the youngest in the family. So I was basically home all of the time, taking care of my mother and my sister and teaching her English. I taught her how to read her citizenship papers. I taught her the Bill of Rights and everything. So she could say after a question or two what it would be and she passed. She earned her citizenship.

Jaap: But she didn’t speak English, but seven other languages. That’s fascinating.

Pavlovich: She did learn. At home she said, “I want you to speak English. I want to learn English.” And that’s the way it was. I, of course, she spoke to us in our language and you understood it. We spoke in our own language a lot too, you know, both languages. But the women, Mrs. Antonetti, Mrs. Faroni, Mrs. Zeidrich, and my mother, basically, none of them had a husband. In grade school, not one of us had a father.

Jaap: Really? Had all of the fathers . . .

Pavlovich: I never had a father when I went to grade school. Faroni’s didn’t have a father. The Vucurovich didn’t have a father. Sanditch’s didn’t have a father. Zderic’s didn’t have a father. They all died working in the mines.

Jaap: And is that how your dad died was working in the mines?

Pavlovich: Yeah, at that time. In the ’20’s and ’30’s, yes.

Jaap: Was he in a mining accident?

Pavlovich: No. Silicosis.

Jaap: Silicosis.

Pavlovich: Lung disease. As far as I know, that’s what most of them died from. I don’t know what else I can tell you. I grew up on the Eastside. I went to high school. I graduated from Butte High in 1947. When I started grade school, they used to have the middle term. You could go to grade school in January. So I started in January. So when I graduated from grade school, it was in January of ’43. And then I went to high school, but I didn’t get my diploma when I graduated in ’47 until May with that class.

I went to Butte High, graduated from Butte High. Graduation day in 1947, well let’s go backwards. In 1946 in October, I tried to join the army, but they wouldn’t take me because my eyes were bad. In May, graduation day of May of 1947, the recruiter came down and said, “Do you still want to go?” And I said, “Yeah, but they won’t take me. I got bad eyes.” He said, “Come up and take the test.” I said, “OK.” So you looked at the eye chart and they said, “Which way does the ‘E’ point?” I said, “That way.” That was it.

Jaap: You were good.

Pavlovich: I swore in right then and there. I went down and I told my godfather who I worked for at that time at the Main Public Market which was right below Denny Wong’s noodle parlor.

Jaap: And what was that market called?

Pavlovich: Main Public Market. Mike Christy owned it. And his dad and his brother owned Christy Waldorf on West Park in the 100 block. So that day then George Stanisich heard that, no George Vucurovich heard that I had missed it and he said, “Well, you can’t go without me.” Then Judo Stanisich said, “You guys can’t go without me.” Pouger Tarrant came up and said, “You guys can’t go without me.” That’s the way it was. Firchi Dever who was going to Central graduated who I knew, he enlisted at that time. And a fellow from Kalispell who I knew, Kevin Johnson, who we knew through playing basketball and football and that, he was going at the same time. Now Pouger Tarrant and Vucurovich and Stanisich only went in for 18 months at the time, that’s all they had to serve. Myself and Dever and Johnson, we went in for three years. I volunteered for three years because I wanted to go to Europe.

They said, “Ok, you’re going to Europe.” When basic training was over I got shipped to Hawaii, the wrong way. So that was it. I thought I might go to Japan, but that never. I got to Hawaii which was fine. I ended up in the 18th Engineer Construction Company. I was there a month and we shipped out. We got on an LST and for 15 days we were crossing the Pacific Ocean. For 15 days on this LST. We crossed the equator. Had to go through Davy Jones’ Locker and we ended up in the Kwajalein Islands, on the island of Eniwetok. And we there and we did an atomic bomb test. We did all the construction work there on the island for the atomic bomb test. This was in 1947, ’47 and ’48. We were there approximately eight months doing all the building, all the construction work. We built a building.

This one building that we built, it was solid cement. It was a big building that we built. The walls were three feet thick. The floor was three or four feet thick. The ceiling was three feet thick. And it had two wings to it. And they were all solid. I mean believe me, solid. And inside the main building, we built a solid lead and brick building where the instruments went in when they wanted to take pictures of the blast going off. These lead bricks, they weighed 27 pounds apiece. And each layer had a different diagram where you had to lay it this way so the rays of the bomb wouldn’t destroy the cameras. We had to cut everything precisely. We had a little mallet and we tapped the lead bricks into place. And I would go down and I would cut the bricks different sizes. They had to go in different places. Almost lost my arm. I cut myself. I thought they were going to cut my arm off, on the band saw.

Because the lead bricks were so hard to cut. But we got it done and we did all the work down there. It was funny, you know, you’re mixing concrete and you use gravel and you sand and you use cement. There, in our mixtures, we used pure iron ore. Pure iron ore for our sand. We used scrap metal, all kinds of scrap metal for our rock, and we used cement. That’s what we mixed cement in our hopper. And then hoppers went into the walls so they wouldn’t move when the bomb blast went off. None of them moved. Well they moved, but they didn't get destroyed. They were all still there after the bomb went off. I didn’t get to see the bomb go off. But a friend of mine who is from Anaconda, Blacky Mores, was with a different company. He was with, more or less, the scientists. And he got to see the bomb go off because he worked with the scientists. Well, I got to meet him there. I knew him from high school. We graduated together. Of course, he graduated from Anaconda and I graduated from Butte. We were both seniors at the time. He ended up in Washington, DC with all of these scientists.

And we had a chaplain there, who was from Butte. He was Irish and he was a captain and he would hold mass for us every Sunday. He always had a good bottle of liquor for us. Because all that we were allowed was two cans of beer a day. You could have all the pop you wanted. So the ones that were teetotalers that didn’t drink beer, we would buy them all the pops they could drink and they’d buy us two cans of beer. That’s the only way you got it. On Sundays we got a little bit of hard liquor from the priest. He was a very nice guy. I think his name was McCarthy. He was Irish. Very nice guy. When everything was done, we were the last unit to leave there. So we had to clean up the place and move everything to the main island where the planes would land. It was a long skinny island. In the middle of the island, I could stand on one part of the ocean and throw a rock to other side.

But on the end it was big enough to handle a plane, actually a cargo plane that they flew us out on. And we flew from there to Christmas Island and we flew from there to Hawaii. It was quite an experience just to see what was going on, what we did down there, actually. And the construction work. To see the scientists, to work with them. They were very nice. We were there, I would say, close to eight months. And then we flew back to Hawaii on our main base on the island of Oahu and we were stationed at Scofield barracks. There was a pass from our barracks to the other side of the island. When the Japanese came through, they came through that pass, when they bombed Pearl Harbor. That's where most of them came through. KoliKoli Pass, I think it was called. But when we were in the service, we used to go up there near the end of the month, when we were broke, basically. We would go down to Honolulu and sell a pint of blood and get five dollars apiece. And there’d be five of us so we’d have $25. Then we would stop on the way back to the barracks at the mess hall and load up on a bunch of food which the mess hall would give us.

We’d take the jeep and go up to Kolikoli pass. We’d go up to Kolikoli, bring a blanket and spend the weekend there, Saturday and Sunday. We’d have a good bottle of whiskey, a bottle of rotgut whiskey and about two or three cases of good beer and we’d spend the weekend there. Nothing else to do. Or sometimes we’d go all the way over to Wainai. There was a guy from Butte that ran kind of a rest area over there at Wainai and we’d spend the weekend over there with him. Something to do. We didn’t have much money. We’d go to Honolulu once a week, on pay day, one night. And that’d be basically it. We wouldn’t have much money. We were getting paid $75 a month. $25 of that I sent to my mother and Uncle Sankitch. Gave $25 to give to her because I was supporting her.

Because all the brothers were gone at that time. Either buried or something, except my one brother. The government would send her a check for $50 a month when I was in the service. I’d send $25. So I had $50 a month to live on. Out of that $50 I bought myself a war bond. And I had that sent home. I told my mother that if she needed to cash it, there was her name and my name. If she ever needed it, to just cash it. And that was $37.50. So I lived on $12.50 a month. Now where I made my money was at the end of the month, when payday was. Those guys on that weekend that wanted to go to Honolulu and party and had KP or guard duty, I would pull guard duty and KP duty for them for $10.

So I got paid $20 so that made me rich. I made $32.50. I ran around with a young fellow from Texas, Ernie Pal. He was a good poker player. Very nice guy. We were very close. He would play poker. He would get into dice games and I would play poker. I was a good enough poker player that when I’d end up winning $50 or $60, I’d quit. So we'd have money for the weekend. I’d go over and see how he was doing in the crap game. He would be doing real good. So I could fudge a few dollars out of him. I’d always get $60 or $70 out of him. So when we’d quit, we would leave and go to Honolulu and we’d have a couple hundred dollars between us. But we’d make that last all month.

And by the end of the month everybody would be broke so we would lend them $10 for $13 back at payday. Which the company commanders said was fine. You could charge interest, only so much though. If you lent $20, you got $25 back on payday. So we always had money.

Jaap: You found a way to make it work. I love it.

Pavlovich: You had to do it, really. Then I got transferred back to the States. My last four or five months I got transferred back to the States. I got transferred to Fort Mason in San Francisco which I really liked. Good duty. Real, real good duty. But my company commander there was Captain Bates. And he was my captain commander over in the islands too when I first got there. We actually didn’t see eye-to-eye. I took typing and that and bookkeeping in high school. I was clerk typist. Matter of fact, I didn’t have to take my final test on the typewriter. I was that good at it.

And he wanted me to come in to the main office and be a clerk typist for him. And I didn’t do it. I wanted to stay in the field. So we didn’t see eye-to-eye. But he wanted me to be his chauffeur, but I told him I didn’t have my driver’s license. I wouldn’t tell him that I had one. So I didn’t have a company one. I had a civilian one, but I didn’t have a GI one at the time. So we didn’t see eye-to-eye. So when I got back to the states, he’s my company commander. And I go down to see him. I wasn’t there two weeks and he transferred me up to Camp Stoneman. So I put my last couple of months in Camp Stoneman in California which was fine. Let’s see I got to Camp Stoneman in late February. So it was February, March, and the company I was with had a baseball team.

So I went out for the baseball team. So I played baseball in Butte. I played in the American Legion. In 1946 we won the state championship in Legion baseball in Miles City. We beat Miles City in two straight games. And we had quite a baseball team. We had Frody. The ones that I played that I played with in grade school. Now I’ll go back to the grade school team. In grade school, our Grant School baseball team. We won the city championship. [Looks at photos.]

Jaap: That’s you right?

Pavlovich: That’s a Grant School one. We went undefeated there. And then after this team, myself, Faroni, Vucurovich, Kello, and Wilbur Johnson made the Legion team. And we played against Jim Sweeney. You’ve heard of Jim Sweeney. Jimmy McCauley, Paul Driscoll, Billy Lebold. I got to stop. You might have a picture of our picture of our Legion team there.

Jaap: Let me see if I pulled one.

Pavlovich: Let me see that would be 1946 Legion team. That’s it there.

Jaap: The Junior Champs. Is that the right one?

Pavlovich: Is that the ’45?

Jaap: Maybe.

Pavlovich: Right. This is ’46. There you go. There’s myself on the back row. There’s Vucurovich from Grant, myself Grant. Eddy Garrett. Sweeney. Lebold. [inaudible]. Wilbur Johnson. Vucurovich. Oh yeah, there were five of us. Me, Vucurovich, Faroni, Kello, and Johnson from the Grant that made the Legion team. Like I said we won the State Championship. With that team we had a good ball club. Sweeney and McCauley and them. Real good. We should have went further, but Eddy Garrett, our manager, didn’t quite listen to us. We were playing Wyoming. Sweeney pitched. I played first base and pitched.

And he gave up two hits in the first inning and he walked two guys and they got two runs in that inning. And after that he blanked them. I think he got one hit after that. We tied the game 2-2. No, we were losing the game 2-1 and twice we had men on third base with nobody out. And we had either Johnson or McCauley at bat we wanted to squeeze in the run to tie the game so we could continue. Anyway, Garrett wouldn’t do it. Twice we asked him and he wouldn’t do it. Two or three innings, he wouldn’t do it. We ended up losing the ballgame 2-1. Sweeney threw a two-hitter, two runs, three-hitter. We had ten hits in the ballgame and scored one run. Couldn’t get a run in. Couldn’t get our heads together. And they ended up playing for the Championship. Wyoming did. I think they went to the Sectionals. We were in the Regionals. We should have beat them. We should have won that one.

It was funny because from North Dakota that year, a gentleman that played for North Dakota, Roger Maris who ended up with the New York Yankees who ended up hitting 61 home runs that year, beating Babe Ruth’s record of 60. But then you have to stop and think. Babe Ruth did it in 154 games. Roger Maris did it in 161 games. Different, actually. But it was comical. The year he did it in 1961. I was in California working down there. In 1961, Mickey Mantle, who played in front of him, only played, he missed 30 games that year. He only played in 131. But he hit 50 home runs that year. So when I was in Florida, Clearwater, Florida, with Evel Knievel. I used to take quite a few trips with him.

But anyway, I was in Clearwater, Florida with Knievel and they had a doings. A big golf tournament that US Steel put on. And Knievel was the big celebrity that was there. We were late getting there. We were in Clearwater. We went to this resort that was owned by Stan Musial who used to play for the St. Louis Cardinals. Great ballplayer. Hall of Famer. We went up to this bar. Knievel took me up to the bar and introduced me as his banker and financier. He always did something like that. At the time, one of the colored gentlemen that was there. He was a TV star and he played on Mission Impossible, the first series of Mission Impossible. Then Roger Maris was there at the bar. Then Al Lopez who managed the Los Angeles Dodgers. And there was another movie star. Actually, he was Spanish, a Mexican and he was a singer.

He used to play in minor roles and he played in kind of B movies where he sang cowboy music. He sang a lot. Quite an actor and a good singer. But I remember going up to Roger Maris and talking with him. I asked Roger at the time, I said, “You know Roger, we didn’t play against each other, but we were in Miles City for the regional baseball tournament in 1947. You were playing for North Dakota. I was playing with Butte. We didn’t get to play against each other. But I remember that you guys got to go a little bit further than we did.” But I said, “Roger, I am going to ask you the question.” I said, “You got 61 home runs. I got to see it on TV in California.” But I says, “You know that year Mickey played in 30 less games than you did and got 50 home runs. Now if he’d have got to play them 30 games, how many more home runs do you think he would have hit, do you think? And besides that he batted in front of you? How many times did they walk him to get to you?

Now if it had been the reverse and you had batted in front of him, we would have seen how many home runs you would have hit. He would have broke the 61 a lot more than you did. He would have probably come close to the 70.” And Roger looked at me says, “Yeah, you’re right.” And I says, “Yeah, you know I’m right.” I says, “I’m a Mickey Mantle fan. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fan of yours. Not that much. I’m a Yankee fan, been a Yankee fan all of my life. But you got it cheap. You broke Babe Ruth's record, but to me it was cheap.” And I says, “Barry Bonds has done it.” And I says, “He got it cheap too.” That’s the way baseball is now. That’s about it.

Then I ended up back in Butte in 1950. My brother, Pete, and Jerry Lombardi ran a little cocktail lounge on Harrison Avenue called Bill’s Drive-in. Now in where that drive-in is now is a pizza place and there’s a hock shop in the middle of it. And on this building next to Shea’s Appliance. They used to call it Bill’s Drive-in. It was a walk-in drive-in. I should have brought some pictures of it, damnit.

Jaap: We’ve got some pictures of it.

Pavlovich: But anyway, if you look between the two buildings, you’ll see a little doorway there. And that’s where the cocktail lounge was. Small. No more than seven people could sit at the bar at one time. And no more could sit at the tables that they had. Maybe eight or ten. Very small. So I tended bar for them every day while they worked. My brother Pete worked at the Mountain Con as a bough-shippe1 and Jerry worked for the Anaconda on the “rope-gang” as they called it. Doing all the delivering. And then they got kicked out of there in 1951. So in 1951, me and my brother Pete started looking for another bar to buy. We looked at the Pacific Bar on the Eastside right where we lived. I lived on the 700 block and so did Pete. We looked at the Pacific Bar which was owned by Mr. Steitzer at the time. And we thought do we want this or not? Then we looked at Casey’s on South Montana Street where the gas station is, where the fork is, right across the street from the Freeway. Where Matt’s Place is. It would have been right behind Matt’s on Montana. It was called Casey’s Lounge.

And we looked at that. And we thought about buying that very seriously. That was a good buy. Then we stopped at the Met Tavern on Harrison Avenue. That was in 1950. In 1947 the George Erickson and Joe Picallero bought the building. At that time, it was called Dale’s Fruit Stand. It was a wide-open fruit stand. It had two big walk-in coolers inside to cool the fruit. It had an open stand outside where he sold fruit. Dale Janowski. Well, these two gentlemen bought it and turned it into a bar. They built the bar at the Met Tavern. That was in 1947 and ’48. And we sat in there in 1950 in July. We were looking at it and thinking about what we were going to do. And Mr. Kropobica was with us. Bob Kropobica who owned Bob and Jones Wholesale who sold Pabst Blue Ribbon and Miller Lite beer.

And I told my brother Pete and Bob, I says, “That pink elephant that there building across the street, the civic center, when they finish that, no matter what goes on over there, they’re going to come over here and have a drink and we're going to know a lot of people.” I said, “This is the place that we’re going to buy.” So we bought that in August of 1951 for $25,000 which was a lot of time at that time. We mortgaged my mother’s house. We mortgaged my brother Joe’s house. And we bummed money from everybody we knew to help pay for it. We had a bank loan with Dale Janowski who ended up moving to Spokane. And he owned half of the fields on Harrison Avenue, right where Albertson’s is now and the mall across the street from the civic center. He owned half of that before there was anything. Just some fields. On them fields is where the grade school Catholic schools used to play their football games and that. And on that field is where we used to play our softball games. Our tavern softball games.

We had a league in Butte where all the taverns had softball teams. Very good softball teams. We had the state tournaments. We had big tournaments here. And then they bought it and built the mall there actually after that. In 1947 I signed up to play in the Copper League with the Southside AC. So in April and part of May, I played with them and then I joined the service and was gone. When I got home on furlough of August of 1950, I played with them for a couple of weeks when I was home on furlough. Then when I got out of the service in 1950, I played with the Southside and then I ended up playing with McQueen, because Jim Kello was the manager of McQueen and we grew up together. So I transferred over to McQueen with the McLaughlin boys and all of them. Then when they burned Clark’s Park in 1958 or ’59 that was the end of the Copper League.

Jaap: So that’s when the Copper League ended.

Pavlovich: We played one year in the big empty lot over by East Junior High. You know that big empty lot where all them houses are now. It was big enough to play baseball. And that was it. That was the end of the Copper League. Then we played softball. So me and my brother, Pete, owned the Met Tavern together. We had music for ten years, from 1951 to 1960. And when we finally got the loan paid off to Dale Janowski. We had other loans that we had to pay, that we had borrowed from different people to pay off. And my mortgage on my mother’s house and my brother’s house. Those things came first and then Janowski. We got the small loans paid off. We finally made the last payment in 1960 and that’s the last time we had music. The 4th of July in 1960. No more music. We used to have music every Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, special holidays. We had a three and four-piece band. Packed every Saturday night. Packed every time we had music. We had jam sessions on Sundays. We had good music. I think that’s how I became deaf. Martin Merkel blew a horn, a trumpet and he could blast, I tell you. You couldn’t hear yourself think when he blew the horn.

But we had that for ten years, the music. Then we quit the music. Then we just had the bar from 1960 and 1970’s. Then in 1978, Jack Peterson and a few others talked me into running for the legislature. Against Jim Courtney. The only reason I ran - because in 1977 I wasn’t in the legislature - but JD Lynch was, Joe Colessy from Butte, Mike Cooney. Jack Healey. I’m not sure. They were all in the House. JD Lynch ran for Speaker of the House in 1977. Two Butte members of our delegation voted against him. He lost by two votes. Now I don’t know if you know how much control the Speaker of the House has. He has a lot of control. He sets up the committees. He decides who the chairmen are. He’s the boss. He runs the roost. So anyway they lost. They talked me into running. Because he ran against JD. So I ran against him. Campaigned. Me and wife. And we won by 200 votes. That was in 1978.

So I served in ’79, '81, ’83. I was vice-chairman of the B&I committee. ’85 I was chairman of the Business and I committee. In ’85 we had re-apportionment. We were going to lose the legislature. So my district was right in the hub. I was in the center. I’m here. Kathleen McBride was here, Dave Brown was here, Joe Colessy was here. Dan Harrington was here. Fritz Daily was here. I’m in the middle. So we had to talk to the lady. She said, “What do you want?” I said, “I’m in the middle so give everybody a piece. Where do I get to run?” She said, “Anywhere you want.” OK, I’ll run against Kathleen McBride. Because behind the Met Tavern and I knew most of the people there. They were my costumers. And Kathleen was from San Diego originally. In 1978 when she got elected, she beat Jim Mellar. Jim Mellar was the legislature at the time from Butte. Just before the graduation of May of 1978, Jim Mellar’s son graduated in May of 1978. They had a beer with us up at the lake up there, Delmoe Lake. And on the way down he got in a car wreck and got killed. So Jim was in a bad place. He was burying his son. Didn’t have time to campaign and she beat him.

So when I ran six years after that in 1985. That was one reason I ran against her. The second reason I ran against her was that she was from San Diego. She wasn’t from Butte. So we campaigned and I won by five votes. It was either three or five votes. Five votes. We had three recounts. She wanted a fourth recount. I said she was more than welcome. But now she’s got to paid for it. You can only have three for free. But I never went behind. I was always three ahead or between three, four and five. Never got over five or under three in the recounts. Then from there I ran unopposed - ’87, ’89, ’91, ’93, ’95, ’97, ’99. Seven sessions I ran unopposed. So I guess everybody liked what I was doing. I fought for the veterans real hard. In 1993 I aired the first bill to build a nursing home in Southwest Montana. It passed with flying colors. I had a lot of help - both Republicans and Democrats.

A lot of good veterans served in both the House and the Senate. I wish I had my books here to tell you who they were. I could only name a few of them and it wouldn’t be fair to name them and not all of them. I wish I had my two phonebooks, I could tell you who they all are. Well, anyway, in ’95 or ’93, my bill passed. No problem at all. In ’93 Johnson, from Glendive, he came to me. He said, “Would you mind amending your bill and we build it in Eastern Montana?” I thought, “Wow. I don't want to lose my home.” I said, “I’ll tell you what I'll do. I’ll get my delegation together. I’ll talk to them. Southwest Montana. Not only in Butte, Anaconda, Dillon and everybody else in that area and see what they think about it.” Well, we talked and they said it’s up to you. You make the decision. It’s your bill.

So I went to the governor. The bill was on the governor's desk. He was going to sign it either way. He said, “You know, it's up to you.” He said, “But they do need something like that in Eastern Montana. They don’t have nothing.” The closest place they could come to would be Helena with the VA hospital. Or up at Columbia Falls in the nursing home we have up there which is the only nursing home at the time. Johnson was his name. And all the republicans, they were good, they were friends of mine, real good republicans that I worked with. I wish I could think of all their names. So I amended the bill under one condition. I told Johnson that when we come back, I want your help for the home in Southwest Montana. Eastern Montana will help you. So we amended the bill. In 1993 we built the home in Glendive. A beautiful place. 1995, Roscoe was still the governor.

And I flew with Roscoe to the grand opening in Glendive, Montana for the home. It’s wings. Wings going this way and that way. Not cottages like this one is going to be. This one is going to be cottages. Lot better. They have the wings and it was great. I got to know the people and you used to go up to visit them once a year when I was in the legislature. Me and the guys from Butte we’d make a trip. Drive all the way up to Glendive check the home and everything. While I was in session, I’d fly up with the governor all the time. We checked the home out. It was good. Nice home. Then I got termed out in 1999. We had term limits so all of us were gone. The whole Butte delegation. You wouldn’t the believe the good people on both sides of the aisle that were gone. John Mercer was our speaker for four sessions in a row - ’91, ’93, ’95, ’97, ’99. In 1991 we were in control. In 1989 I was chairman of the Business and Industry committee. In 1999 we were in control of the House again. We had a big majority.

Al Harper was elected speaker. Dave Brown, one of our men, ran against him. He lost. Harper didn't like that. He didn’t like a few things that we did in ’97. A few bills that we past. There was the granola bill for one. They wanted the farmers in Montana to grow this granola and make granola. It was like olive oil. They wanted the farmers in Southwest Montana to grow the wheat germ and build the factory here and grow the granola seed and make that. We passed the bill. And they started growing granola, but it didn't get big enough for us to build a plant. Harper held that against us. He took my chairman position away from me.

Fritz Daily was chairman of education in 1977. He took that away from him. He took Dave Brown’s chairmanship away from him from the judiciary committee. Made Dave Brown . . . He basically took Dan Harrington’s chairmanship away from him in taxation. But he made him co-chairman. Now he liked Dan Harrington. Dan Harrington was a good friend of ours. We weren’t Dan was different from the rest of us. In the appropriation committee, Joe Quilici and Red Manahan from Anaconda were chairmen of their sub-committees in appropriations. They took both of their chairmanships away from them. That’s what Harper did to us. We were a big majority. I think we were 63 to 37. That’s how big of a majority we had. We were 63 in the House. They had 37 Republicans. Harper ran it down their throat. He crucified the Republicans. He was really bad. We lost the next session. We lost the ’93, ’95, ’97, ’99. Mercer was chairman. Mercer treated us real good. Mercer gave me the committees I wanted. Mercer gave us a Butte room which Harper never gave us.

We had our own room that we called the Butte room. We had a key. We had every Monday morning - the beer distributor leader who was a lobbyist - two cases of beer in front of the door. We had a wall rack the size of that picture, maybe a little longer. There used to be a liquor wall rack and it was empty. In there were 14 different kinds of liquor that the lobbyist would keep full for us. We had a coffee pot. We had two phones. We had whatever we needed in the Butte room. Every day when the session was over we would go down and have a drink. Lobbyists, Republicans, a lot of Republicans came down there. No Harper. None of them. Very seldom would Harrington come in. But we had good room. We’d get with our committees. We’d go in, sit down, and talk over the bills. I’d talk to a Republican. I'd say, “I like your bill, but can you amend this out of it? I just don’t like that part of it.” He’d say, “Well, I’ll see what I can do.” I’d say, “I’ll vote for it, but I’d like to vote for it with that out of it. It’s a good bill.” He’d work on it and we’d get together.

They would do the same with my bill. Anytime I had a veteran's bill, I could go to the Democrat's side, veterans on the Republican side, they would all co-sponsor the bill with me. Plus, other people. Never had a problem. Passed every veteran’s bill I had to. One of the biggest ones was the Veteran’s Preference Bill. Who gets the preference on the job? The veteran got so many points first. And then yours is submitted, you got your points. If he got more points than you, he got the hiring position. That was the big one. The Veteran’s Preference Bill. After that there was minor bills that helped the veterans anyway they could. In fact, there was one session, and I don’t have that card with me, there was a group and I can’t remember what they were called, but there was a special group of veterans. And they were not only Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force pilots, everybody.

They belonged to a certain society. I can't remember the name of it. They came in and they were having a convention in Helena or in Montana. They were having it up at Big Sky. What they wanted, what they were looking for is getting a three-day pass for the veterans so they could fish in Montana without having to buy a license. So I introduced the bill. We got it into Fish and Game. Just for a three or four-day pass. One of the Republicans on the other side said, “Bob, you know what, let’s make this a lifetime pass for anyone of these veterans. For anytime they come in Montana they can fish on our streams.” I said, “That’s all right with me.” We amended it in the bill, sent it to the house floor, it passed. Senate passed it. Governor signed it. So those who come to Montana even now. And this happened in the '90's. Any time they want to they can fish in Montana. They have a special license for their lifetime.

And they had a convention up in Big Sky and me and my wife got invited to it because I sponsored the bill. And it was first class. They were dressed in their blues. And then like I said, from every service. They were colonels, generals and I don't know who they all were to be truthful. But it was fantastic. There had to be a hundred of them with their wives and me and my wife got to go. And they took care of everything. It was first cabin. We were there for three days. It was wonderful. Something you're lucky to say to your grandchildren, I was there. I wish I had the card. You know I had a card. I could call you up later and tell you what the name of the organization was. That was it actually. I got out in '99. Sisco and them got the money for us - in the House and the Senate. John Sisco and the Butte delegation and the Southwest Montana delegation worked very hard to amend the cigarette tax.

We're getting so much money to build a home. And we have all the money. We got our state money. All we were worried about was getting our federal money which finally Tester got. Now I don't know if you've been out there yet across from Three Bears, but they're putting plumbing in. They're starting on it.

Jaap: Did they start the plumbing?

Pavlovich: Finally broke ground. So they're going to put the sewers in and whatever else has to go. But they broke ground. So that means next year we'll get started on the cottages. The cottages will be - they will have 12 cottages in there. Each cottage. For twelve veterans. Each veteran will have their own room with their own shower. Each cottage will have their own kitchen with their own cook. And they'll be a nurse out there. At least one or two nurses that will go around to the cottages and make sure everything is alright. If we need a doctor, they'll call Saint James. They'll send one out right away. There'll be one on call. We'll start off with five cottages. Then if we have to go bigger, we'll go bigger. So that's 60 people to start out with.

Jaap: That's great.

Pavlovich: Yeah it is. And there'll be enough room to build more cottages if we need them. And the money will be there. Now we have 20 million dollars - 10 from the state, 10 from the feds. Plus, it keeps coming in every year. And if we need more money, we'll go to the legislature and we'll get it. They'll still always be some veterans left.

Jaap: Yeah, that is so great. That it is finally breaking ground. That took a long time. Something to be very proud of.

Pavlovich: I just wish that all the ones that helped me were still alive.

Jaap: Yeah.

Pavlovich: So many of them have died. [cries] But I think about all of them even now. I'll go to work. Mr. Antonetti who at that time worked for the federal government and his job. It was a big one. Dan Antonetti. He was the one that pushed the Veteran's Preference. He was the one who really helped me with that. And that was my first session - '79 and '81. After that every time, we had stuff for the veteran, Dan would come up the halls. First, we'd say, "There's Dan. Gotta have another bill." And sure enough, he'd say, "Bob, we gotta have this." "Ok Dan whatever you say.

You tell me what we gotta get done." I'd get a bill drafted, we'd go down to get a bill drafted. He'd tell them what all we needed. We'd go up and we'd pass it. Never once did we lose. Never lost a bill. Dan was great. He just passed away a year ago up in Helena. I was a pallbearer. Yeah, it was great. It was an honor. I couldn't carry the casket. Stood behind it. All of them are gone. Koolessy. Menahan. Brown. God. I can't think of them all. All them guys that helped me. None left. There's only me and Fritz from the original crew that are left. Everything's gone. Joe Bran from Deer Lodge. Cash from Dillon. They were great guys. Great people to work with. Ed Greeley out of Helena. Republican. Every Monday morning his wife would make cookies for us. For the Butte Delegation. Give'em to Ed and Ed would bring them to the Butte Delegation. We were great friends up there. Treat us good.

Everywhere we went, it was great. Harrison. And then his son who was a judge who ran for the District Judgeship and then got beat. He was a judge down there for quite a few years. I served with him. Then he ran for the Judgeship. He just got beat. Who was it? Somebody I didn't like. It was a Republican, I didn't like. That's where I start getting bad. I keep forgetting. That's what happens when you get to be 90 years old.

Jaap: I don't know. You still look like you're doing pretty good, Bob.

Pavlovich: Yeah, 90 years old. I'm getting too old. Too old. Can't golf anymore. I go out and play pinochle with the boys. Do a lot of traveling. Go down to see my kids in Seattle. I got a son in Seattle. My son John was on the police force here for five years. Went to Seattle on the King County Sheriff's Department. He's got 20 years in now. He can retire pretty soon. He's in his 50's. I said, "John, you can't retire. You gotta stay in until you're at least 65." Wait and get a good retirement. And my daughter, Maureen has two little boys. They're both in grade school.

And she works for Eddie Bauer. She's the head buyer for Eddie Bauer. She does all the traveling. She goes to Hong Kong. She goes to Sri Lanka. She'll go to India. She'll go to Honduras. She'll go to Egypt. She'll go wherever they have these units where they make the clothes. That's what she does. She's the buyer. She does all the traveling. One trip - she went around the world. She left Seattle flew to Atlanta. From Atlanta she went to some place in the Middle East. Made four or five stops there around India and all them places. Bangladesh and all them places. Ended up in Japan. Made her last stop and then flew home.

So she made a complete trip around the world. I said, "Next time you're going to go, take me with you." Can't do it. It's too bad. It'd be nice to make a trip like that. But she does a lot of traveling. She's got close to 20 years with Eddy Bauer. She's the youngest. '62 I got married. John was born in '63. Maureen was born in '65. So she would be 53 years old. So John is a couple years older. He's 56. He's got 20 years. He could drop out. I told him don't you retire until you get a good pension. Unless you find a good job in one of those big hotels down there in security or on a golf course for security. He said, "You're right, Dad. I'll look." You're too young to retire.

Jaap: What's your wife's name?

Pavlovich: Her last name is Stephan. There we go. The Stephan's that I used to know in Butte, lived in McQueen. My mother, not that I ever remember her living in McQueen, an older lady out there that my mother used to go visit. Mrs. Mabel was her name. I'm almost positive her and my mother were related. There was another lady that was married. She would always be in Mrs. Mabel's house too so I figured out that we gotta be related to Mrs. Mabel and that other lady. They had a son and daughter - Billy Ludwig. Billy Ludwig and - But Billy was the same age as I am and he ended up in Japan. He joined the service at the same time that I did. A week or so before me. He ended up in Japan. He ended up staying there, marrying a Japanese girl and living there. He ended up being a teacher over there in Japan. So he's gotta be living there.

Well, he went over there in 1957. He's been there since '57 on, so all them years. I don't know if he's ever come home or not. He called me once, gave me his phone number and I'll be damned, there's no way in Hell that I can get through to him. I don't know how to do it. I gotta find somebody to get his number, a Japanese number. I'd like to talk to him before he dies. We're the same age. Got a sister that lives in California. Can't think of her name. It's embarrassing. Really it is. I see somebody and say I'm sorry I don't know who you are and I guess I should do that.

Jaap: Hey, you're 90, you can do what you want.

Pavlovich: Well, I don't know.

Jaap: How did you and your wife meet?

Pavlovich: I met her in California. I got a divorce from my first wife. Me and my wife had one son and two daughters from my first marriage. Bobby, Maureen, and Julie. We got divorced in . . . The four of drove back and saw the World Series. Brooklyn Dodgers. Me and Vucurovich, Antonetti and Faroni. Then I got divorced. Then in 1960 I went back and saw the World Series. Then with Hannah Griffith, he was mayor. Me and Hannah and his daughter flew in a little plane from Butte to Illinois on the other side of the Mississippi river, took a bus to Chicago, got a big plane in New Plymouth to New York. Got to see the three games in Yankee Stadium. The first two were in Pittsburg. Three Yankees Stadium. Then two in Pittsburg.

We got to see the three games in Yankee Stadium. 1960. Then in 1961, the all-star game was in San Francisco between the American and National League. Me and George Randich drove down to see the All Star game in 1961. That would be in July. That's when Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, Willy McCovey, Willy Mays, all them stars were all playing in the All Star game. I told Randich, "You know what? I'm going to stay in San Francisco. I'm going to get a job." He said, "What about Pete back home? You got the bar." I said, "I'll call Pete and explain it to him. I can't go back. I just got through with this divorce and I'm drinking too much." And I was. I mean at that time I was drinking shots. That was bad. I gotta get my head squared away. He says, "OK." So I put him on a bus and sent him back. That time Billy Bennett, who was from Butte, was working in the Sir Francis Drake. I grew up with him. He went to Central, but I went to Butte.

We sold papers together when we were in high school. Went up and saw Bill. He says, "Go see whatshisname." Her brother was an auditor in Butte in the courthouse. Anyway she was the head of the culinary workers in San Francisco - all the waitresses and all that. So I went and saw her. She looked and me and said, "Your Bobby from the Met Tavern aren't you?" I says, "Yeah." She says, "What are you doing here?" I says, "Well, I'm in a bind." I told her what was my problem. I says, "I'm looking for a job, want to go bartending someplace for a while. Get my head squared away." Duckham. Duckham. Here in the courthouse. She says, "No problem." She gave me her card and told me to take this down to the bartenders' union. Give the card to the guy who does the hiring down there. She made a phone call. I took the card down. Went to work the next day. So I worked in this nice little bar in this neighborhood. Good bar. Nice little bar. I used to live in Concord with two other guys from Butte. They had a place over there. And a lot of times I lived with the Vucurovich. He was there. We grew up together in San Francisco. They had an empty cot that I could sleep on at times, if I didn't want to drive all the way back when I worked nightshift.

So anyway I worked in this neighborhood bar there and we used to hangout in a bar called Gene and Frank's on 18th and Castro where all the Butte and Anaconda guys used to hangout. I used to hang out with them there. Anyways, they were looking for a bartender to work nights, four nights a week. I was working five over here, but I knew I'd be better off over here with my own Butte friends. So I quit that job and went to work over here four nights a week for Gene and Frank's. Gene Pelagrini and Frank Simms. We used to get a Butte crowd in there on Friday and Saturday night and a few weekdays. But on Friday and Saturday there would be probably 20 to 30 of us from Butte and Anaconda. So when they'd come in, we'd have a pot behind the bar. That way nobody had to buy drinks for everybody. Throw it into the pot. Everybody would pay basically. And everybody would get in. Everybody was in the pot. Gene said to me, "Don't do it that way. We're losing money." I said, "We're making money. Everybody's spending money this way." So it was real good. Gene figured it out finally.

They used to come in on Saturday and Sunday. Then we used to hangout during the weekdays too. Quite a few of us. I worked four nights a week there - Saturday and Sunday with Gene, with Johnny Neary and he was from Butte. And he used to work at the Monogram Bar here in Butte before he went to San Francisco. So the two of us worked together two days a week and two days a week I was by myself. My wife Cathy used to come in with the Native Daughters. They had a club called the Native Daughters. They were born and raised in San Francisco. Or I should say California. They were called the Native Daughters. So they'd have a meeting club of their own. They'd come in once a week, four or five of them, have a toddy or two and go home. And she'd be with them. That's how I got to meet her. So I got to talking. She was single and divorced. She was divorced. Had two kids. So I got the nerve and I asked her for a date. We started dating each other.

Once a week when I had my days off, we'd go to a show, have dinner or something like that. Time went on - two or three months. And then June. My brother Pete called up. He said, "I'm tired. I need a vacation. Would you come home for a couple of weeks?” No wait. In between times. I gotta go back. In between I was only getting four shifts there. I had a friend of mine who worked around the bar called the Club Unique. And this place. This is Market Street. This is 18th. And this is Castro. I worked 18th. There was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Eight bars in this little area. At the Club Unique over here. Real sharp man. Very, very sharp. He was working nights and he wanted to go to days. The dayshift bartender quit. So he got me and said to come over here and work. You'll get five days a week. You'll five nights a week over here. So I quit Gene and Frank's and went over here. They didn't like it that I went around the corner. I took all the Butte bunch with me.

They weren't very happy, but I told them, I says, "I'm getting five days a week there. I was only getting four days a week from you." And Simms and Pellegrini he wasn't too mad. So I was working there a distance relationship from my first marriage. He owned the bar on Harrison Avenue, way out there. Anyway, he came down to visit me. He said, "I got a friend of mine who is looking for a bartender in the key system in a place called A Bit of Paradise. It'd be a perfect fit for you." He said, "You'll make some real good kicks down there. Real good money. This guy will take care of you." So I quit there, the Club Unique.

And I went down to the Key System. That's where all the boats and the trains and the busses. There was a lot of bars down in that area. It was called A Bit of Paradise and it was a long bar. I'd go to work at 4:30 and it was three set-ups in it. By 6:00 the dayshift bartender would leave. Then the owner would stay with me until about 6:30 or 7:00 and then he would leave. Then I'd have it by myself. I mean it was. You wouldn't remember the Atlantic Bar on Park Street. The longest bar in Butte. There's a picture of it. There's a picture of four guys standing in front of the Atlantic Bar. They're all in their nice pants. All have white shirts on. This was called the 5220 Club. When they got out of the service, Uncle Sam gave them $20 a week for 52 weeks to get them going. So it's the 5220 Club. They're all there in their white shirts and their pants. They just got their check for $20. So they're going to have a party. But anyway, this bar was long. And each week. The guy was good to me. He took good care of me. I mean he really did. I had tips. He got in a dice game with a lot of the salesmen and everything down there and he always made money.

When he was there, supposed to be helping me. I had the whole bar by myself. When he gets through, if he made $30 or $40, he'd slip me five or ten dollars. And he had a policy - you don't buy a drink. But being from Butte, you know, you bought a drink when a guy had three or four drinks. So these people'd come in and they'd order a double martini. It cost a $1.50 is all. He used to buy 30 cases of vodka a month, that's how much vodka he went through. Double martini. So he had a shake like big beer cups you see now. You'd fill that full of ice and as you went by, you'd hit the water. You had the vodka and you'd pour and it'd be water and vodka in there. And it would be just about full. Put the cocktail glass out there. Throw a couple of olives in. Put the strainer on it and give it up and pour his martini for a $1.50.

He was getting a hell of a deal for a buck and a half. We would have them shakers. We would have 50 of them. When work got off between 4:00 and 6:00, you'd have a hard time finding an empty one to make a drink. There'd be three of us back there making them. Then at 6:30, 7:00 I'd be by myself. It was a long bar. And when all my buddies from Gene and Frank's used to come and visit me, I'd tell them, sit on this end of the bar. I'll tell you where to sit and I can buy you a drink. So nobody knows the difference.

So they'd come in and there'd be four or five of them. And instead of taking $2.00 apiece and getting $10, I would take $2.00 and ring up $2.00 and nobody would know. That's the only way I could buy them a drink. The next time I might take $3.00 is all. That's the only way I could buy them a drink. I could really buy them a drink. The only ones I did that to were some of my good customers that I knew that nobody else would know. I had a bunch of stevedores that would come in every night - have a shot and a beer.

They'd have a bottle of beer and a shot of whiskey. They would have two shots and a bottle of beer. I'd buy them the third shot. They'd look at me and they'd say, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, you had two shots and a beer. I'm from Montana. When you have two, you get the third one free." They said, "You're from where?" I said, "From Montana. From Butte. I used to own a bar there. That's the way we did it. When the guys got off the hill, all them miners come up from underground. They'd have a shot and a beer. They'd put down a dollar. Three shots and a beer for a dollar. That's all it cost them." They'd look at me and say, "Ooo boy."

So every night they would leave me a $2.00 tip. Payday on Friday, they would leave me $5.00 apiece. And there would be five or six of them every night. You got to know your customers. And you had a few of the double martini guys that were real good. And they'd want a second one and you would add a second one. And if they wanted a third one, you bought them the third one. And they would leave you a tip. You'd have customers that would have a high-ball. They'd have two; I'd buy them the third one. When the boss was gone. Don't do it when the boss was there. Never do it then. But I made good tips there. I averaged there every night just about between $40 and $50 a night which was good money in them days. That's in the '60's. But anyway my wife used to come in all the time and we went out on dates. And I had to come home that summer.

The next following year in '61. My brother wanted to take a vacation. So I came home to Butte and let him go and he was gone for two weeks. I worked while he was gone and then I went back to California. And then me and my wife decided to get married, Cathy. George Vucurovich and his wife, Peggy, who I stayed with in California, were up in Butte on vacation and my wife was in San Francisco. But just before that she came to Butte and visited in Butte. So she stayed with Lefty Winters and his wife over at their house. I didn't want to put her up in a motel because people would think that I was sleeping with her while she was here.

So she stayed with Lefty and Cass. So anyway she got into Butte and she liked it. Now that surprised the hell out of me. She went home. And then in July, me and a bunch from Butte and Anaconda went to a wedding in Wallace, ID. And we went there for a weekend and I got drunker than skunk. We had a really big party there. You wouldn't believe it. Big, big party. So anyway while I was over there I decided to propose to her. We decided to get married. So I went home and said, "OK, I'll meet you in Reno." So I drove down with Vucurovich in my car and she came up to Reno with her dad. We got married in Reno. George and his wife stood up for us. They went home. They took Mr. Murphy back to San Francisco and we honeymooned in Reno and up at Tahoe. And then we went to San Francisco and I said now we're going to live here. She said, No, we're living in Butte.

So we packed up our stuff and drove to Butte and had it shipped up. She wanted to live in Butte. She wanted to come to Butte. That surprised the hell out of me. That was in 1962. And then John was born in '63. Maureen was born in '65. She wanted to get away from her mom and dad and her family. She was the oldest of eight. There was four girls and four boys. There was her and then Bobby, then Denis, then Cookie, Dolly, then Jackie, anyway Lillian, Gerry and then Lillian was the last one. Denis is dead. Bobby is dead. Jackie is dead. Cookie is dead. Four of them are dead. Four of them are still alive. Cathy, Dolly, Lillian and Gerry. We got married and had a kid and then - she wanted to live here. She didn't want to live in San Francisco. She lived next to her mother. Her mother owned buildings.

And you could go out the kitchen window and get on her mother's porch. The houses were [claps] like that. That house, after we left there, both houses sold for over a million dollars. They were them old style houses that were built years ago, you know. And they were well kept. God, you wouldn't believe it. I told that we should have never left. God look at that. We could have sold that house for a million dollars. God it was crazy. So we lived here and we had John and Maureen and I ended in the Met with my brother. Like I say, when I went to Helena, my brother Pete decided that he wanted to retire. So then we were looking for a partner. I should have kept the bar for myself, but Pete needed the money and I didn't have the money to buy him out. But I was getting married and I had a house. You got house payments and car payments and all the kids and all that. Alimony from my first kids. There's no way I can borrow any money to pay Pete and make payments.

So I had to take in a partner. So I took in this Herbie Alistich in 1979. And then we were partners until I got out in 1999 and then I sold it to him. We were partners for 20 years. That was a mistake. My daughter used to work for him and he fired her. My oldest daughter. He fired her because she wanted a Saturday off. She was going someplace with a bunch of her friends. She wanted a Saturday off and he fired her. Well that - a lot of people didn't go in there after that. Believe me. A lot of people. In fact, I was pretty upset about it. I told it to him to his face. I said, "If I knew that you were going to do that, I'd have never sold to you. First, I would have never got you as a partner. And secondly, I'd have never sold it to you, if you were going to do that to Marcy. I would have kept the bar to myself and gave the bar to her." She could have had it. Her and the family anyway. I told him just what I felt and in fact we're not very good friends now. Still to this day. Actually, even when I sold out to him in '99. That was terrible what he did.

And then he just sold it to these people from Whitehall. A few years ago, three friends of mine went to him and offered him $350,000 for the bar. He was doing pretty good then. He wanted $400, so they backed out. Then I had another friend of mine come in and offered him, I think, $260,000 or so, $270,000, and he wouldn't sell it to him. Now, these people from Whitehall bought it. Now I heard two different stories - I heard he sold it to them for $240,000 or $260,000 somewhere there. So when I went in and had a drink there, and I only go in maybe once a month or every two months, because I don't, the people are nice, but they don't know how to run a bar. I says, "I heard you got it for sale." They says, "Yeah, $375,000." I says, "You're never going to get it. You don't have any business. You never buy anybody a drink." She says, "Yes, we do." I says, "No, you don't. You don't buy anybody a drink." I had three or four drinks. You don't buy these guys a drink. How do they get a drink? You got them shaking dice that they roll. They roll these dice and if they get a certain number, then they get a free drink. I says, "You're not buying them a drink. That's a lousy way to do it. But that's your business.

You want $375,000, you're not going to get it and I got somebody that'll give you $260,000. You only paid $240 for it. You'll make $20,000." She says, "I did not. I paid Herbie $270,000." Well, Herbie told me $240,000. You told me $270,000. We'll split the difference - $260. These guys will offer you $260. I said, "Get out. You got no business. If I was you, I'd take it and run." But they still got it. They also bought the Corner Bar. They own that too. Now, that's a different clientele. They're making money there, because that's a whole new. Those are the - what do you call them? The ones that get the free checks every month. That's where they hang out. So he's making money there. But the Met, no. He's not. He's gone through his bartenders. Can't believe it. They might sell it eventually. But I got somebody that wants to buy it for $260 and I think they might even go up to $280. If they go to $280, then they ask me if I go back and help them run it. I told them I would. Because she's looking at me, and I says, "No." And she says, "I think they want me to come back and work for you once in a while." I says, "No, I would never do that." Not for you, I wouldn't. Because Herbie did a lousy thing. Selling it to you and not the two people that wanted to buy it before that. He should have at least offered it to them. But he didn't even do that. Very disappointed in him. That's twice. I can't believe it. I think we're pretty close.

Jaap: Yeah, we're up to date.

Pavlovich: I drive for Avis once in a while and I drive for Mile High Motors once in a while. I used to tend bar at the country club. I did that for quite a while. Quite a few years. Two or three times a week. And then when I started the crutches, then I used to just work one night a week. Wednesday nights during the wintertime, only. I have a group of fellows that come out there and they play pinochle. And about ten, eleven o'clock one of them usually quits, then I get in on the pinochle game.

Because these guys like to stay in until 3:00 or 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. So it don't bother me. I got nowhere to go. Nowhere to go home. My wife understands. And I'll stay late. The other bartenders don't. During the wintertime, normally at the Butte country club, you can close between 8:00 and 9:00. It's that quiet. They have a golf league out there that simulcasting golf league. But most of them guys are done by 9:00 or even before. And they usually have maybe one drink and then they're out the door. I got the pinochle players. I have a group of steady guys, if I'm working Wednesday night, I can get there at 4:00 and at 4:30, there's six of them that will stroll up and they know I'm working. There will be four or five more of them. There's about eight or ten that will come in Wednesday night when I'm working. I'll sit around until 7:00, 8:00. My old customers from down at the Met - down at the country club. I told my daughter Julie is now the manager at the country club, at the bar.

So I told her, I said, "Julie, I'll tell you what. We'll try one Wednesday night. And we'll see if my legs will hold up. If my legs hold up, fine. If not, we'll forget it. I'll try it. I don't think I can do it. My legs are gone. I gotta have that cane behind the bar. The only thing is nice about it is the bar is about this wide. I can hang onto the bar this way. I can hang onto the back bar this way. But if it gets too busy then we got a problem." So I don't think there's anything else that I can think of. I play pinochle with the boys out there. We play a lot of pinochle. I go up to Wise River about once a month. Me and Fritz Daily, we go up to see Louie. He bartends at the H Bar J, a good friend of ours. Comes into the Met, used to be. Good customer of mine. And then we stop at Thompson's Corner and see Pat Parnell who I bowled with his dad in the '50s and who tended bar for me at the Met. Very good friend of mine.

We stop and see him, have a couple of beers. Then I stop at the Met and who is ever left of the crowd. And there ain't that many left because all of the women. Rock is still there. Rock's wife died. Jay died and his wife died. And she was one of the women. Parnell who comes in there now. Julie, she died. Three women died in the period of two years at the Met. They used to be there every Friday night. There used to be a crew of them. Used to be a nice crowd on Friday night. Now it's getting thinner and thinner. They're all dying off really. Nothing you can do about it. Too bad. Good bunch down there. I had that corner down there. There'd be ten or twelve. And I had an older group in the morning that were all retired when I was still there. There was about eight or ten of them. They all worked for the city or they worked out at the warehouse for Safeway. They worked up in the warehouse district. The teamsters.

There was eight or ten of them every day. They'd get there at about 2:00 and they were there until 5:00 or 6:00. You could bank on it. Eight or ten of them. They were there. All the time. Never had to worry about it. They'd buy two. I'd buy them the third one. And they would travel. There'd be four of them. There was one guy that would go buy spuds and fruit down in Hamilton. They'd go up to Flathead, get up there and get the cherries and everything like that. They'd come back with all this stuff. Give it all to the other customers. They'd go and pick dandelions for me. Ernie Sorini, Peter Sorini, who died, the doctor. Ernie Sorini. Don Peoples' dad, Mr. Peoples. Andy Jaap.

Jaap: That's my a - I'm a Jaap. I'm married to a Jaap.

Pavlovich: Would Andy be your grandfather? Lived over there by the Freeway?

Jaap: Yep. That's my husband's grandpa.

Pavlovich: The little white house.

Jaap: Yep. That's my husband's grandpa.

Pavlovich: Well, I bowled with Andy. And your grandmother.

Jaap: Rose?

Pavlovich: Yeah.

Jaap: She just passed away a few years ago.

Pavlovich: Who would be your dad?

Jaap: I'm married into the family. So I'm not.

Pavlovich: You're married into it?

Jaap: Andy's son.

Pavlovich: Well, when I worked at the Red Zone. I used to work in the Red Zone every Saturday and Sunday dayshift. And your father would come in and bet the tickets. I'd see him once in a while. I ran into him at the Depot buying some pull-tabs.

Jaap: Oh sure. Yep.

Pavlovich: You're a Jaap. God, I can't believe it. What a small world.

Jaap: Isn't that funny?

Pavlovich: Yeah it is. Me and Andy bowled together for years, when I first got there. In the '50s. Like I said, we bought it in '51. I'm going to say 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, I don't know how many years we bowled together until they all started dying off. There was me and Andy Jaap and Tom Parnell, Pat's dad. Art Turner. Murphy. Karvina, Steve Trudica and myself. There used to be eight of us. We bowled together. We rotated. We used to go all over. Never miss a bowling tournament. We'd go to Deer Lodge, Dillon, Missoula, Great Falls, Bozeman. If there was a bowling tournament, we'd go. Yeah. Then I bowled with the younger guys, my group. My age guys. These guys were all older than me. I was a young pup. They were a good bunch. Lot of fun. Andy Jaap. If I remember, he played the spoons.

Jaap: Did he play the spoons?

Pavlovich: He played the spoons. He had a couple of spoons and he could make music with them. You gotta ask your dad about that.

Jaap: I will. I am not surprised to hear you say that actually.

Pavlovich: What a small world. Rose sure was a beautiful lady.

Jaap: Oh yeah.

Pavlovich: Who lives in that house now?

Jaap: You know. I don't know who it is now. Rose. Just recently though.

Pavlovich: OK.

Jaap: Yeah Rose passed away a few years ago.

Pavlovich: Wait ‘til I tell my wife. What a small world. I can't believe it. Yeah, my wife knew your grandmother. We used to have a ball. Then I used to bowl with the younger group: Joe Zedric, Faroni from the Freeway, Ybor Barch, me, Tommy Vankovich, Clements Simich. Used to go to tournaments all the time. Andy and I, state tournament and a few other tournaments. But with Zedric and them, we never missed a tournament. One time we left Butte, Saturday morning, went to Hamilton, bowled a four game singles. Bowled four games doubles. And six games singles. Left Hamilton. Drove.

We bowled in P-Burg. Let's Philipsburg. Drove all the way to Hamilton. Bowled a three game team event. Four games, doubles. Eight games singles. Then drove to Missoula and that night we bowled the team event and the singles, eight games singles. All in one weekend. And made money in every one of them. Made enough money in every one of them to pay for the trip. All of us made money. In Philipsburg, got money back. We went to Hamilton. We made money back in every event there. And when we got to Missoula. Crazy what we used to do. Well, you got things to do.

Jaap: Bob, thank you. This was lovely. Thank you.

Pavlovich: I'm glad I made it. God, if you would have told me you were a Jaap, I'd have skipped one of them driving days. Have you been in the Met?

Jaap: Yeah.

Pavlovich: You know in the backroom where the dartboards are?

Jaap: Yeah.

Pavlovich: We used to have a ticker tape. Western Union used to put it out. This was in the '50s. All the football scores. All the baseball scores. All the basketball. Anything happening in the sport world would come over that ticker tape. So in other words when baseball was on, if Mickey Mantle hit a home run, right after he hit the home run, it would say, Home run. Mickey Mantle. What inning. How many were on base. And who they played against. This was for every team. Football season. For every college football game and pro football game. Everything would come up. Who scored the touchdowns. Right down the line. Everything would come in. We would have people that would come in. I would never get to the blackboard. They would fight each other to put the scores up. They'd have one board there during the baseball season. The home runs. Who was leading the home runs. Who were the best pitchers.

We had the standings over there. Every day the standings would be changed. Crazy. That was fun. It was good. When they had the tournament, the first tournament they had in 1952 at the Civic Center. From then it boomeranged. You wouldn't believe it. One basketball tournament over at the Civic Center. You wouldn't believe it. One basketball tournament over at the Civic Center. Bob Olovich, Louie Markovich, and Mark Stanisich played for Butte High. Sullivan played for Central. One basketball tournament over there on a Friday night. Butte played Great Falls. Central played Helena. I had $10,000 on the Central Game. $20,000 on the Butte High game. That was bet. That was $40,000, $20,000. They lost to $10,000. They won the $10,000 game. Lost the $20,000 game. They came back the next night. We want to do it again. I had $60,000 bet on the championship game. Don't put that down. It was illegal. Really.

I never had anybody make a bet more than $200. There was five, ten, twenty, thirty, twenty-five, fifty, hundred dollars. Nobody went over $200. I had stacks of paper. I'd look and I'd hand them credit. I had $5 bets, $10 bets, $15, $20. As far as getting reimbursed, getting a little tip out of them, I would say the most I got, the whole thing, was $20. Having all that money. $20.

Jaap: Wow. Really.

Pavlovich: Crazy how it is. Every year after that I charged the basketball money, the money that used to go through that place. Now, you can't do it. But if I was still there, all I would do is go over to that blackboard and put up there, "Butte High will beat whatshisname by six points." No money. Guy'd come in, look at it, "I like that bet. How much you got?" I'd take it. State came in, I'd say, "That's just up there. That's no bet. That's just up there. I'm a Butte High fan. I can do anything I want with my blackboard."

Jaap: I can write on my blackboard, why not?

Pavlovich: But we did get pinched in 1990. They came in. They nailed us. Cost us a lot of money. And the funny part about it is, I was running the book. I'd take like you did, your grandpa does. He goes over and bets on the football games. I used to do the same thing. We ran the book in Butte. There was a judge in Dillon, I used to send him the tickets every week. And he would mail them back and he would bet $10, $20, $30. When we got fined that time, we ended up in Dillon, in front of that judge to pay the fine. He's sitting up there looking at me and he's fining us. You wouldn't believe it. Nothing he could do. Nothing I could do. Just one of them things that happens. We got caught twice. First time wasn't bad. Only cost us a $1000. Second time it got expensive.

Even now they come in looking at you. I finally made the pull-tabs legal. That's what they really came in for. The second time in 1990. The pull-tabs. They sent their guys in. The guys would come in and buy the pull-tabs just like they did at the Depot when they had them at the Depot. Same thing. Depot was running the big ones. And when I made them legal, I only made them for $5. Trying to get them legal. In fact, it was two years ago, four years ago, my legislature, not my district, his father was a mayor here, Irish name, legislature, Walsh, anyway, he's up in legislature again. Couple years ago, I said, "Do me a favor. Go up there and my pull-tab bill, make one change. Change the five to a twenty-five, see what happens." Sailed it. Now they can sell a pull-tab for $25. And talking to Fischer, what do you think about changing that $25 to $50. I said, "You know, Fischer, you might lose everything you got. Be careful. If you want to, we'll do it. But you think about it.

You want to lose what you got, or do you want to keep it? Stop and think, you put up a $25 board, you make good money off it, you know." You get ten percent of every board you sell. You sell a $2 board, you make $20. You sell a $10, you make a $100. You sell a $25 board, you make $250. You've seen them pull-tabs. How many of them are in a row when they got the football games on? In the course of a Saturday and Sunday, they have got to sell roughly, at least over, $10,000 worth of pull-tabs. On a Saturday and Sunday, between the twos, the fives, and tens, and twenties and the all-gamer. At least, $10,00, if not more. So he's walking away with $1000 or better, you know, every weekend, clear. Clear. Makes a lot of payments, $1000. When we had the pull-tabs down at the Met, you sell $5, $10 ones.

Then I used to have $16 for the all-gamer for the 16 football games and baseball games on Saturdays and Sundays. I'd have how many games there are on Sunday, that's how many I'd make it for. A dollar. You win $90. $16, I used to make $160 off that one. My ten percent. Crazy. But I'll get out of your hair.

Jaap: Thank you, Bob. This is great. Thank you.

Pavlovich: I could tell you stories about the Eastside and that, but you don't want to hear them crazy stories.

Jaap: Well, if you ever want to, we'd love to hear them.

Pavlovich: When we used to live on the Eastside, up by the rink. They had a rink up there that they flooded for skating and everything. If you came up in the wintertime, it was "wood or freeze". If you didn't bring any wood, you couldn't sit by the campfire. We'd go up on the hill and holler at the guys in the St. Lawrence mine yard, "We need some wood!" They'd throw it over the fence for us. Then Christmas time, we'd go hustle all the Christmas trees and we'd have a big bonfire up there. Burn all the Christmas trees. They'd take us a week to burn all the Christmas trees. But we'd burn them all at one time. So many every night. The rink would be flooded. If you wanted to skate, then you had to shovel. You gotta clean the rink. Well, thank you.

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