BOTTOMS UP! Alex Neth JUST TAKE BUCHTEL @ PUB ON PEARL 1101 S. Pearl St. 303-777-6768

It's hidden, but you might find it if you look. The Pub on Pearl is tucked away in a corner befitting George Washington's hat-- I25 on the long side with the two shorts being Mississippi and Pearl. It's hard to get here, and it's hard to give directions. There is a sign, but chances are you won't see it. If you're getting here, you're getting here by force of will. But oh, the power therein! Mere blocks from the yuppie dogwalking paradise of Washington Park lies an oasis of real swillitude. The Pub on Pearl manages, thankfully, to pull off the trick of being unpretentious in pretentiousville. The note on the door says this place was established in 1990, but that first nine could as easily be an eight. The beaten wood floor might have come straight from the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The guy to my left looks like he's been here since the place opened. The few other customers are reading papers, quietly sipping cocktails, watching daytime television. Ahhh...

It's nice to get away from bars that jump up and lick your face. It's nice, now and then, to go somewhere where nobody knows your name. This little slot of a pub-- there's but two rooms, one the bar and one in the back for billiards aficionados-- has been the stuff of mere rumor to me for years, like cold fusion or a decent Hot Carl. I was getting to the point where I wasn't even sure if it really existed. But it does, it does. I have the headache to prove it.

"It's got that neighborhood bar feel," said Elena Hickman from behind the bar. "It feels like part of the community, not a chain. It's a great atmosphere, a fun place to work."

Hickman is new to this block. She was only hired here two months ago. But she knew when she got to the area that this was the kind of place she was looking for.

"When I first got here, I checked out The Spot, Handlebar," she said, "but I like it here. It's really laid back. Everyone is willing to deal with a new person. It's a lot nicer than working for a corporation, with all that strict B. S."

There's nothing corporate about this place, unless you count the three guys in ties who replaced my ancient friend on the left. (His name was Bill, by the way-- I only know because when he got up to leave, everybody in the place cried out "Bye, Bill," and, "See ya later, Bill." He just kind of grunted.) This is the kind of bar where you can drink without the interference of cutesy Lodo shit. This is no Dick's Last Resort, no Baja Beach Club. This is a genuine effin' pub. How the hell did I manage to miss this place when I live mere blocks away?

"It's kind of hard to give people directions here," Hickman said with a smile. "You tell 'em to take Buchtel, and nobody knows about Buchtel."

Well, here's sharing with the people-- just take Buchtel west, for God's sake. You'll get there. The 52 bus also stops right outside the door. Drop in at 4 p. m. for happy hour and drink $1.75 domestics, or $6 pitchers of the same. Peruse the slim menu and maybe have a burger or a burrito. It won't set you back much-- nothing costs more than $8. Listen to the faint hum of the traffic, the mighty solid liquid of the freeway just out the door.

That's really what this place is-- a highway bar. Truckers would eat here if their trucks could only fit into the neighborhood's narrow old streets. Families on crosscountry trips, sweaty loners drinking coffee, crinkled, leathery women in turquoise. Lazy Susans hung with decorative keychains, 30 more miles 'til Little America. Pronghorn antelopes lying dead on the highway, buried by thousands of wheels. Kids in the backs of station wagons playing the license plate game. The stuff of American myth, stuffed into a small tavern in one of Denver's richest neighborhoods. Why here?

Because. Sometimes questions only confuse. The simple fact of The Pub on Pearl's existence is enough. Just knowing that the edges of the diamond are chipped, that's enough. I sit with my beer, listening to the highway, remembering the bars I used to visit with my dad when I was a little kid. Highway bars. Bowling alley bars. Bars with old men named Bill drinking Budweiser, bars that don't serve tapas. Bars like this one.

Sepiatoned memories, mulled like the wine I would never order here. Life is amazing, shitty and poignant, and sometimes you just have to look for a bar by the freeway. I did, and I'm a better-- and more sloshed-- man for it. Dad would be proud. B