Cave Creek Dottie

Good morning, friends. I’m going deep today. This memory takes me back to a time when I had just turned 18 and got a summer stint working behind the bar at Mulligans. I’d recently graduated from Sunnyslope High School and was gearing up for college when my dad asked me to help out at the family bar. It felt like a promotion compared to my usual weekend chores of sweeping floors and scrubbing toilets with my brothers.

Most customers stuck to beer, though a few tested me with exotic drink orders. Thankfully, someone was always there to guide me—except for one day, when Dad stepped out to run an errand. That’s when she walked in: Cave Creek Dottie.

Dad had worked hard to make Mulligans a respectable neighborhood spot, like a real-life version of Cheers where everybody knows your name. And everybody did know Cave Creek Dottie. She was practically a legend, at least along Cave Creek Road, where Mulligans had been since 1976.

I poured Dottie a drink, and she began mingling with the regulars. Moments later, her boyfriend burst through the door, drunk and belligerent. He started yelling for her to go home, but Dottie ignored him. Then things took a turn—he grabbed her by the hair and started pulling.

I stepped in and told him to stop, but he yanked harder. I can’t recall if I leapt over the bar or ran around it, but somehow I found myself between them, like a referee breaking up a fight on the football field. I pried them apart and told him to leave. He refused.

So, I pushed him. He stumbled back, startled. I pushed again, backing him up to the front door. Summoning all my strength, I rammed into him, sending him crashing through the heavy door and onto the ground outside. I shouted after him, “Don’t ever come back!”

Word spread quickly about the altercation. One of the patrons leaned over and asked if I knew who the guy was. That’s when I learned he’d done time in prison—for killing a man.

When Dad returned, I told him what had happened. I never saw the man or Cave Creek Dottie again. Not long after, Mulligans closed its doors for good.

If my life were summarized in Reader’s Digest fashion, this story would be at the beginning—a time of rags as I climbed toward riches, followed by a descent back into rags. But along that descent, I found something more valuable than anything I could have imagined: I found Jesus. And now I’m living in true riches, far away from people like Cave Creek Dottie’s boyfriend.

I share these stories every morning before sunrise to show how Jesus works in my life, through both the good times and the bad.

Next week, I’m attending workshops led by Sean of Think Media to refine my storytelling. He’s asked us newbies to submit videos for critique. Maybe I’ll live stream this story about Cave Creek Dottie—stay tuned!

Have a great day.