The last time we pulled into the Starlite in Fingal, we stumbled into a hotbed of community memory, as it was all-school reunion day. The Starlite still stands. Its rounded roof spans white stucco walls. Top front, above the entry, is the Starlite Garden sign, indescribably inviting. The building now opens for events and functions.
The Starlite was a legendary dance hall and pavilion. It has a ticket window and a coat closet in the foyer, hardwood floors inside. The walls are hung with trophies of high school glory days and American Legion memorabilia. The dance pavilion on the west side, with its outdoor stage, could use some work.
Born in the heyday of swing, the Starlite made a successful transition into the era of rock and roll. I find a newspaper notice from 1948 advertising the place for sale: OPPORTUNITY IS KNOCKING North Dakota’s most popular indoor and outdoor dance hall . . . on and off sale.”
A wonderfully popular cover band, the Echo Men — what a great name for a cover band! — served the musical tastes of the next generation, members of which I enjoyed questioning about the Starlite when I met them in the bar across the street. That bar burned down this spring. The Starlite still stands.
We drove over again early this summer for an event called “Bunches of Lunches.” This was a Sunday dinner organized by the combined ELCA parish comprising Messiah of Fingal, St. Pauls’s of Kathryn, Waldheim of rural Kathryn, and St. Petri of Nome. Its purpose was a public benefit, to defray unpaid bills for school lunches served to community kids short on cash. I talked to the pastor, and she says the bills amount to tens of thousands of dollars. We stuffed twenties into the jar that said, “Free-will offering to benefit student lunch debt at area schools.” We ate pulled pork, slaw, potato salad, beans, and desserts (plural).
We jawed with legislative candidates at the table. I made plain my sentiments that as a Lutheran and a farmer, I think the only defensible position is to feed everybody. How is it that we need a religious charitable event to feed public school students? It seems like there is a yawning gap between grassroots community and the state as currently constituted.
Somebody has to maintain this building, the Starlite. The Fingal Wildlife Club has regular meetings here, and so the club does the work and pays the bills. Since the bar across the street burned down, Jim Lehfeldt tells me, the town council also meets here in the Starlite. From which I infer, before that, the council met in the bar.
Jim grew up one of eight kids in a German-Norwegian Lutheran family. As he recalls, the German-Hungarian Catholics — that’s Trinity parish — lived east of town, the Lutherans west. Such divisions, manifest and recognized, are a part of community, too.
Let them belong to memory. Let the Starlite stand. All best wishes to the Fingal Wildlife Club, and especially to Pastor Robinson and her parish. I see she has been preaching recently from Amos 3, wherein the prophet upbraids Israel for oppressing the poor. The pastor is more gentle than the prophet. But maybe we should just feed everybody. The prophet says, if we fail to do so, there will be consequences.
