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THE AGE OF ELEGANCF. By GARRISON KEŁLOR OcL 13.1997    l

These pcrfect fali days make me sad, and thcre havc been so many of them lately in Minnesota. My curc for sadncss is, first, to clean off my glasses and, second, to takc a fest ridc on a bicycle. lf that doesnt work, I go to Murray’s. The.next step is to join thc Men in Thcir 50s Coping with Melancholy group, and I've never had to do that.

Murray's is a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis that's bcen around longer than I have. In my childhood, thcre were tlie Big Thrcc, Charlic's, Harry’s and Murray's, and only Murray's survives. It is thc sort of grand old joint you find in any big city, restaurants with pink drapcs and a 70-ycar-old coat-chcck girl and a pianist who plays Deep Purple and thc waitresses have names likc Agnes and Gladys and the menu harks back to the Age of Steak; a place whcrc a fiftyish couplc can cnjoy a Manhattan and tuck into a chunk of cow and au gratin potato. Murray's serves the Silver Butter Knife Steak for Two. That's the spccial, and it's bcen around sińce I was leaming to read-I saw it advertised on billboards around town. I’d form the words MURRAY'S and SILVER BLTITER KNIFE STEAK phoneticaliy, and say them aloud as we passed, and thc mystery and clcgancc of them stuck with me. My parents never went to restaurants. We ate at hotne or at thc homes of relatives-we were scnsible peoplc, not spendthrifls or dreamers. Once a year we went to thc State fair and had Pronto Pups. That was it. Every Sunday morning, howcvcr, my father drove us to church, and tlić route took us past Murray's, and I would glance up from my Bibie and the verse I was memorizing for Sunday school, and tlicrc was Murray's big marquce and the namc written out in orange błock letters and, abovc, a sign that said COCKTAILS/DANCING, and over the years, memorizing one verse after another, you build up an intense interest in a place like that. You imagine walking in and finding yoursclf in a movic~the maitre d' takes your coat and hat and nods toward a comcr banąuette, and there sits Fred MacMurray, your boss at Acme, stubbing out a Lucky, grinning, and you rcalizc it's all truć—you're assistant manager now, you got the big raisc, you and Sue and Becky and Little Buddy can move out to Sunny Acres.

I savcd up Murray's for years, and then, when I tumed 21,1 couldn't go thcre because I was under the terrible burden of bcing hip-it took years for that to wear off, during which I ate what hip people were cating in Minneapolis then, cthnic food, most of it awful. I thought of Murray’s as a den of Rcpublicans: steaks bccame (in my mind) politicizcd. And then, on the very last day of my misspent years in graduate school, my role model and hero Arnie Goldman said, "SchooTs out—what do you say, let's go to Murray’s," and so it was cool. We put on our corduroy sportscoats with the leather elbow patches and had dinner, and he ordered us martinis. and thc gin madę me as witty as Robert Bcnehley. We swapped timelcss rcpartcc for a couplc hours and ate liberał Dcmocratic steaks and felt thc glow of scholarly brothcrhood.

I liave gone back about once every three or four years, and thc magie seems never to wear ofT, the sight ofthc pink drapes, thc mirrors, the candelabrum sconccs, thc red plush chairs, thc candlcs flickering on thc white lincn—it still elates mc, the Silver Butter Knifc feels like a bright sword in my hand. And last year I returned with four old friends and my wife Jenny. It was one of tlie happiest nights I can remember, everyonc yakking and laughing, cating steak, drinking a big booming red winę, fceling flush and lovablc. And tlien I went back one night last wcek with Jenny and my son and his girlffiend. We strollcd in, and I saw thc pink drapcs, and I fclt the old euphoria risc in my hcart, and it dawned on mc that I had invented Murray's: as a child, rcading the words SILVER BUTTER KNIFE STEAK FOR TWO oiT billboards, meditating on them, 1 had crcated a kingdom of elcgance morę durablc than any restaurant where an immaculate young waiter introduccs hiinsclf and tells you about the broiled marlin scrvcd in fcnnel mustard sauce on a bed of basmati ricc and topped with shrcddcd asiago cheese and lightly toasted pine nuts. I would ncvcr take out-of-towners to Murray's. Nobody whom I wanted to impress. Only my dearest friends. Only old Minnesota pals who grew’ up with Murrayism and know it as a symbol of all we hołd dcar.

On a beautiful fali day, when I recall what was grand and cxaltcd and now is gone forevcr—thc Burlington Zcphyr and tlie Nortli Coast Limited, the New- Yorkcr of my youth, Memoriał Stadium where we spent Saturday aftemoons cheering for tlie Golden Gophcrs, the Earlc Brown fann that was tumed into a mail and a subdivision-I think of tlie S1LVER BUTTER KNIFE STEAK FOR TWO, looming abovc mc on a billboard, our car stopped at a red light on Lyndalc Avcnue in 1952, the Bibie on my lap open to Ecclesiastes, my head anointed with Wildroot hair oil, and I feel restored. Scme glories remain. You for surę, and mc, perhaps, and, absolutely, Murray's.