Dinner and a Show

In the summer of 1985, Lovely Wife and I were living in Bossier City, Louisiana.

We had been married for less than a year, and decided to take a long weekend to get out of town. We decided to go to Galveston, Texas.

It rained on and off the whole four days we were there, and since Lovely Wife was six months pregnant, we weren't going to get in the Gulf anyway.

No disrespect to Texas, but the Gulf of Mexico at Galveston was not very appealing anyway, and just staying in a nice hotel, eating out, and seeing a few sights was vacation enough for us.

We picked up some brochures at the hotel we were staying at, and of course I cannot remember the name of this hotel, but one of the brochures advertised that one of the last "tall ships" was in dock there and was open for tours; the Elissa. I've never been sailing before, but sail boats have always fascinated me. Many of my all-time favorite novels are nautical in some way. (That's the Elissa there on the right.)

So one day we made our way down to the dock area of Galveston. I was kind of apprehensive, since most dock areas of any coastal town are usually pretty rough, and we would be walking around down there with my camera and lenses, and an obviously pregnant woman.

But we were able to park, purchase tickets, and go aboard the Elissa. I read all of the little info thingies telling the history of and operation of the various parts of this magnificent ship, took some pictures, and then we left.

Hey, it was Galveston in summer and it was HOT.

We were hungry and I thought that there just had to be a restaurant down there somewhere. All those workers in the area had to eat somewhere, so we drove around the dock area and soon saw an old white painted wooden building on a corner of two streets.

I can't remember the name of the place, but the sign said it was a Bar-B-Q restaurant, and that was good enough for us.

Next problem was that there was no where to park. This restaurant had no parking lot, and the sides of the road near the place were packed with parked cars and trucks.

We drove around and finally found a vacant place big enough to park in within walking distance to the Bar-B-Q place.

We walked in and the place still had some open tables and we were told to seat ourselves. The insides of the restaurant were no more impressive than the plain outside of the structure; simple tables and chairs, wooden plank floors and walls, etc.

But the smell! Oh my. If you like good Bar-B-Q, the smell of this place was almost good enough to fill you up without eating.

This guy came out to take our order. He was a big man with a white apron on that was stained from top to bottom with sauce. We ordered chopped beef sandwiches, beans, cole slaw, fries.

What he brought out to us was a sandwich for each of us that was basically a po-boy bun, hogie bun if you will, and it was heaped with so much chopped Bar-B-Q beef that we had to eat some of it with our forks to get the meat inside down to where we could close the sandwich to pick up and eat. And the flavor was all that one could ever hope for in Bar-B-Q.

So we were minding our business and eating, when this young man walks into the restaurant with a boom box.

He asks loudly if some woman's name was there, and a lady slowly raised her hand.

The man walks over to her, tells her happy birthday, hands her a rose and reaches and pokes a button on the boom box and music starts blaring.

He immediately starts into a sexy dance as close as he could get to the woman without touching her.

The lady's friends who were eating with her start cackling and clapping at her obvious embarrassment. The rest of the restaurant gets quiet and just watches.

Lovely Wife was actually seated with her back to the show that had just started, so I got up and swapped places with her so she could see. The man does a whole strip tease, all the way down to what was basically a g-string, or something skimpy like bodybuilders wear on stage. When the song was over he gave her a kiss and told her happy birthday again and picked up his clothes and his boom box and left.

Everyone in the place was still laughing and the birthday lady was still laughing and obviously embarrassed. Her friends were rubbing it in too.

Eventually we finished our food and left, but we will always remember the fantastic Bar-B-Q and the unexpected floor show at that little hole in the wall Bar-B-Q restaurant in Galveston.

That was the first and only time Lovely Wife and I ever had dinner and a show, although to me, the entertainment wasn't quite up my alley.