One Balmy Night on Greenville Avenue

At a restaurant on lower Greenville Avenue this Sunday, I eyed the Blue Goose Cantina across the street as I ate lunch with a group of people.

It’s hard to believe almost 30 years have passed since I last set foot in that Dallas eatery. I remember that evening so vividly from three decades ago when mobile phones were the size of a man’s shoe. I was a young newlywed at the time.

Greenville Avenue sidewalks were packed that night with foot traffic. Music filtered from the bars and restaurants. The smell of sizzling beef fajitas added to the nighttime ambience. Laughter overflowed in abundance.

A photograph taken later in the evening outside the Blue Goose shows my skin a sun-kissed, golden brown. I’m wearing a red Mexican dress embroidered with colorful flowers. You know, the kind of stitching that adorns touristy clothes made across the border? I'd bought it while honeymooning in Cancun only a few months earlier. I don’t recall if I decided to wear that outfit simply because we were eating at a Mexican restaurant. But who knows. Maybe I really did plan it that way.

In another photo, one of the men wears sunglasses just like the Blues Brothers wore. He clenches a fat cigar between his teeth. My husband makes a ‘v’ with two fingers above that friend’s head. In a third snapshot, all six of us are smiling as wide as the Grand Canyon.

I’m blessed with such a fond memory filled with laughter on that balmy night so long ago. It was a time of happy innocence.

I’ve lost touch with two of the people in that picture. The other couple moved away, but at least I’ve kept up with them over the years. And that dark-haired guy I married? Well, I’ll save that for another blog post.

You can never go back and recapture those moments. But I wonder if those long-ago friends remember that night with fondness like I do.