All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Read Online Free Page B

are famous for their phrase about how you can’t always get what you want but sometimes you can get what you need. Well, I’m here to tell you that sometimes you can get what you want
and
what you need at the same time, with free toothpicks and mints, and a kiss for topping!
     
     
    I wrote that gloria to chicken-fried steak a long, long time ago. I have not changed my mind one bit. After the story appeared in print I got a call from a traveling salesman who had checked out the cafes I mentioned in the story. He had an update. Some are still cooking, but one of the best had been closed by the health authorities. Seems they found dirt in the cream gravy. The salesman said he was told that the cafe regulars figured now they knew the cafe’s secret ingredient.
    He nominated Mom’s Café in Salina, Utah. I went. I ate. A four-star winner.
    To guarantee that a blue-ribbon version of chicken-fried steak will always be available close by, I made a special arrangement with my favorite Seattle cafe. (The Shanty—on the waterfront at 350 Elliot Avenue West. No dress code, no valet parking, and no violence. A sign on the wall says, “All perverts must be on a leash.”)
    On the dinner menu now is the Captain Kindergarten Blue Plate Special. It’s gourmet chicken-fried steak. An aged, choice, lean, New York strip steak that’s been butterflied, pounded, dipped in fresh egg wash, peppered, dredged with flour and bread crumbs (from sourdough bread), and fried light golden brown (ninety seconds on a side) on a hot grill that has been greased with a little butter and a touch of bacon drippings. The steak covers the whole platter it’s served on. Everything that goes with it comes in little dishes on the side: rolls, soup or salad, mashed or French fried potatoes, corn or green beans, a pitcher of cream gravy, and fresh seasonal fruit or custard pie. Endless iced tea or coffee. A toothpick, a mint, great conversation, and a hug from the waitress. (Worth a generous tip.)
    I once talked them into cooking chicken-fried bacon for me.
    Oh sure, I know if you eat this way you’ll die.
    So? If you don’t eat this way you’re still going to die.
    Why not die happy?

 
     
     

    C HARLES B OYER
    T HIS IS KIND OF PERSONAL. It may get a little syrupy, so watch out. It started as a note to my wife. And then I thought that since some of you might have husbands or wives and might feel the same way, I’d pass it along. I don’t own this story, anyway. Charles Boyer does.
    Remember Charles Boyer? Suave, dapper, handsome, graceful. Lover of the most famous and beautiful ladies of the silver screen. That was on camera and in the fan magazines. In real life it was different.
    There was only one woman. For forty-four years. His wife, Patricia. Friends said it was a lifelong love affair. Soul mates. They were no less lovers and friends and companions after forty-four years than after the first year.
    Then Patricia developed cancer of the liver. And though the doctors told Charles, he could not bear to tell her. And so he sat by her bedside to provide hope and cheer. Day and night for six months. He could not change the inevitable. Nobody could. And Patricia died in his arms. Two days later Charles Boyer was also dead. By his own hand. He said he did not want to live without her.
    He said, “Her love was life to me.”
    This was no movie. As I said, it’s the real story—Charles Boyer’s story.
    It is not for me to pass judgment on how he handled his grief. But it is for me to say that I am touched and comforted in a strange way. Touched by the depth of love behind the apparent sham of Hollywood love life. Comforted to know that a man and woman can love each other that much that long.
    I don’t know how I would handle my grief in similar circumstances. I pray I shall never have to stand in his shoes.
(Here comes the personal part—no apologies.)
But there are moments when I look across the room—amid the daily ordinariness of life—and see