Wilbo Visits Celina Texas Before a Tollway Changes it Forever

A woman photographer with a Nikon snapping pics is a major event on Pecan Street, and she is posing her cowboy-hatted model, a robust woman in a black shirt, proud of her no-one-is-complaining muffin tops. The photographer asks her model to reach her arms above her head to grab the porch post against which she leans.

Lucy's Cafe has six ceiling fans and an air conditioning system, plate glass windows emblazoned with the Lucy's logo. The plywood porch roof couldn't carry the actual weight, but a Texas longhorn stands guard over the two double doors, which swing outward. The Texas longhorn is named Lucy. Naming a restaurant after a male longhorn with a female name might be a Texas custom. Sweetie Pie is also a Texas longhorn, and Sweetie Pie's Ribeyes in downtown Decatur, Texas is a wonderful place for a classic meal featuring steak, the excellent Texas ribeye. It's the meal you get if you ask for dinner. No one trifles with a menu.

When a little girl came out to play on the boardwalk, the photographer in braids and bold eyebrows and a white fitted shirt kept snapping pictures, not worrying about model release issues. I didn't see how the little girl was stuck, a skinny girl of four at most, but her sister picked her up and freed her foot, and the little girl didn't bend or flex at all, although her bigger sister held her body at a forty-five degree angle. Soon, The photographer returned to her Pecan Street offices; that's where I saw in the window the round Mylar reflector carried by her assistant.

Lucy the steer is a left-over from the restaurant's previous owner, and Lucy is a fine name for a male steer. Nothing screams masculinity like a pair of long horns, even if he's a polled steer, a gelding whose beef isn't growing to toughness. Frozen Lucy is a cookie covered, candied walnut covered dish of ice cream, not a beef dish. I complained to my Texas belle waitress, "You didn't offer me dessert, so you must not like me!" Her name was Haven, the first slightly different feminine name I encountered in Texas.

Lucy's Cafe has many great wall hangings and signs. Here's a few examples: HAMBURGERS: Stop in and ketchup with the best. HOT DOGS: You'll relish the flavor. MORRISON'S PEACEMAKER is better flour.

I roamed around town a little, and admired the preserved town square, with a small gazebo hung with begonias, kept well watered, now fully in flower. A group of men and women worked on a concrete post ten feet tall, and I couldn't imagine why these senior citizens were working so hard in the hot sun. A few weeks later, the concrete sides were clad in marble, and each marble side bore the engraved names of Celina's fallen sons and daughters, fallen in battles in Cuba and in battles in Afghanistan. The marble stele had been made ready for Celina's Fourth of July observations.

I took a close look at the Nelson Hotel, which no longer received guests. The building was erected in 1914, but it didn't operate as a hotel until the Nelson family owned it. I didn't copy down the historical marker information and I am now wishing I had. Not far from the Nelson Hotel, I noticed along the railroad tracks a collection of rusty silos, as rusty as the rail bridge to the last century outside Bill Clinton's library. Another historical marker claimed that Celina had moved for the rail line, the Katy I believe. A fully-loaded train with two engines roared on through as I inspected the town. The Katy is still busily moving building materials, including limestone. The city didn't move back when rail passengers dwindled. The North Dallas Tollway is reaching northward now, and I had driven along miles on tollway under development through Frisco, fifteen miles south. It will probably pass Celina on its western side, and Celina will grow westward to accept the tollway's daily deliveries of men and women longing for a Texas homestead with a touch of history.

Sweetie Pie or Lucy?