Dinner at the Star

 

In one week, we went from feeling sophisticated to funky western. Tonight, the Burtons, Jean, and I had dinner at the Star Café in Fort Worth’s National Historic Stockyards District. For forty-two years, my good friends Betty and Don Boles have owned the Star. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Betty and Don have sold the classic steakhouse. Saturday night will be their last hoorah. So the last couple of weeks they’ve been busy with folks who have come for a last supper. Tonight was out turn.

Betty was waiting for us, with a reserved sign on the front table that I’ve always loved. It sits right in the front window so you can watch the comings and goings on West Exchange Avenue. Of course, you have to mind the sign that says, “Please don’t mess with the neon lights!”

Wine was served, and we fell to nostalgic stories and memories, with lots of laughter. The late-night dinners when the café had emptied, the night one of Jordan and Christian’s friends fell asleep in a booth, the times Jordan wanted to take home a pint of the house-made ranch dressing, the luncheon after Jacob’s christening. I asked about the people I remembered—Bino, the cook who is still there; Emilio, the clean-up guy who left after long years; the prep guy who’d been there since I remember; the postman who used to come for supper before he went dancing and always wanted to talk about western history. Other faces and memories swam before me, but I couldn’t be specific about them.

For me, nothing would do for dinner except chicken-fried steak. You can get steak, nicely done, in a lot of restaurants in this city, but good chicken-fried is a special thing onto itself. Betty and I split an order, with mashed potatoes and lots of gravy. Saying she knew they’d never serve it at Trinity Terrace, Jean also ordered chicken-fried, declaring she would take half home with her. She didn’t. She ate it all. Jordan and Christian ordered filets, and Jacob had chicken fingers which I remember were so large I could barely eat one. It was all delicious.

Best of all was seeing Betty. For years, she and I went to dinner every Wednesday night, sometimes to our regular places, other times adventuring out to try new places. In recent years, we added Jean to the tradition. But then pandemic hit. I knew Betty was still working weekends at the Star, which made me leery, and then I got to the point that getting me out in my walker was just too much trouble. I stayed home a lot. Tonight I realized that it took at least two people to help me at the two steps in and out of the Star—Betty couldn’t do it herself. So our habit fell by the wayside, much lamented by both of us. We have gotten together occasionally—a couple of times to go out with others, a couple of times on my patio. But we have missed each other, and it was good to reconnect tonight.

A thoroughly happy evening!

In other nonconsequential news, I got my hair cut really short. I notice in the picture how fat my face looks. But my doctor said, sanctimoniously, “We do not encourage the elderly to lose weight.” That’s because if a health catastrophe hits, you might need that reserve in the hospital. Also losing weight stresses organs in your body like the heart. So here I am, eating modestly—honest, most of the time, just not this week—and still gaining weight. I have decided to be happy and not worry about it.

One thing I did worry about: my extreme fear of weight, as it showed itself in Jean’s seventeenth-floor apartment the other night. By serendipity, 23andMe, which I subscribed to several years ago, sent me the next day a report on my fear of height. My first thought was “How did they know?” Well, of course, they knew by profiling, and they said most people have a 29% chance of fearing heights; I have a 38% chance. Furthermore, people who fear height get their sense of balance from visual points of reference—if you are at the edge of a high balcony, you have no such visual points. I instantly remembered being in a wide, empty lobby where the walls and floor were of neutral marble (faux, I presume)—no pictures, no furniture, no plants, nothing. Just that faux marble. I told Jordan it was the kind of space that made me feel spacy. When she asked what would happen, I said, “I don’t know. I’ll lose my balance and fall on the floor.” Now that makes sense to me. There were no visual points of reference. I am deeply relieved to know the reason for my fear and that it’s not just a silly idea in my mind.

So, a great evening, a good week, and I am ready to sleep. ‘Night all. Sweet dreams.