People At A Coffee Shop

The kids have left home and the dog has gone to heaven.

For everything there is a season.

A time to reap, a time to sow. A time to bear children and adopt a rescue dog to teach them empathy. The season for orthodontists is followed by the season of U-Hauls and driving kids great distances to start their careers.

The sun cleared the Section-8 unit across the street as a guy inside our coffee shop watched a mother on the sidewalk playing a game with her son.

She would offer a banana which he refused with an exaggerated shake of the head, only to grab her hand and take a bite. It was his job to make his mother laugh.

The boy was a study in motion. At one point he’d rotated himself fully upside down in his stroller. He’d been hearing about this thing called an “indoor voice” and it occurred to him that being out there on the sidewalk, as outdoors as anybody can get, there was no limit to noise he could make.

For the man sitting inside, this was a opportunity to watch a child closely without fear of being falsely accused of something creepy.

He had made thousands of drawings of children during his career. The balance of their heads, the preverbal language of their hands, their examination of objects and that just-delivered newness continued to fascinate him.

A morning customer and her dog took the next table over and instantly the boy had planted himself on the pavement.

The scene played out exactly as scripted; dog begging for attention meets child being coaxed to pet him. Sooner or later there will be a four-legged sibling in this kid’s future.

The man watching all this unfold cherishes memories of the absolute, moment-to-moment closeness he shared with his own children decades ago.

And while he has no desire to relive those years, to see the seasons run backward, he never refuses the chance to hold someone’s baby in his arms when the opportunity is offered.

Who better to coach young men on male responsibility than an imperfect man who raised five daughters?One of the rewards of sitting outside at our coffee shop is that Lonnie can roll up in his wheelchair and join the conversations.

His life has been more interesting than most.

In no way is Lonnie making excuses for himself when he explains that narcotics became an economic driver in the neighborhood where he grew up; and how they were systemically marketed and distributed.

And he never tried to hide from the young men he was employed to coach on responsibility that he had been “strung out” during a stretch of his life. “They knew,” Lonnie says. And maybe he was better equipped to reach them about the dangers they faced because of his scars and his time on the street.

“Things are difficult for men these days,” he explains. We’re not teaching our sons the things young men need to succeed in a culture wary of them.

The expectations of fathers and breadwinners has changed, he says. Male adolescents don’t have fathers in their homes when they need encouragement most. In many families a man is considered optional.

“I’m a lucky man,” Lonnie Wilson will tell you.

He was raised by an involved father, a stepfather and two grandfathers. Their embrace of “orderliness” as an encompassing virtue stays with him to this day.

Between Tasha, Tiffany, Jasmine, Jordan and Latoya, someone is always coming by to fuss over their father. They dutifully nag about his smoking – “…really, Dad?” – so he’s laid in a ready supply of air fresheners.

Lonnie’s been wheelchair-bound for some years (heart, stroke, brain surgery, etc.) so the doorway to the coffee shop makes it all but impossible to join the winter discussions inside. But he reports making progress with a walker and he’s promised himself to be walking freely next year.

There’s a chair at the big table inside waiting for him.

People at a Coffee ShopFour years of free tuition to attend an elite, top-ranked institution doesn’t come without a certain price.

At the university where Trinity (they, them) graduated, an incoming freshman is four times more likely to be from the top one percent than from the bottom twenty.

The challenge for students like Trinity is to find community and keep pace with others who can elect not to work and are able to focus solely on their course load, who enjoy coaches and connections and can consider unpaid internships that open doors.

They, Trinity Collins, are more than grateful for the package that included free tuition. But as an undergrad, while maintaining a 3.8 GPA, they worked full time to pay for housing, fees, textbooks and living expenses. All of this while being the primary caregiver for a family member.

In hindsight the migraines, chronic pain and a missed semester were all but inevitable. And in retrospect those remote classes during the pandemic were a godsend for the overextended undergrad. Trinity became close to the members of an online “pod,” coming to share an identical tattoo with one of them.

Trinity notes the disconnect that a university business model which enjoys an endowment of $14 billion, and was so generous to them individually, exploits the labor of students, athletes, TAs and adjuncts alike.

They, Trinity, may continue their pursuit of history through a joint Masters and PhD Program. Understanding the past, they believe, is key to dealing with developments that today’s powers-that-be didn’t see coming, or chose to ignore.

At this particular moment, after graduating, Trinity looks forward to building a bit of savings and to enjoying the freedom and the luxury to simply “do things.”

…floating in a most peculiar way. And the stars look very different today.*

She can expect to experience 3Gs of gravity during liftoff followed by intermittent episodes of weightlessness.

Her name is Maya Vezner. And she is preparing to launch.

She is showing clear signs of the auto-immune response known as “senioritis” which allows even the most driven seniors to step back and stabilize before they step through the hatch.

Her hours for the most part be will her own. She’ll be freed from the class schedule she’s followed for years.

She’ll be as independent as she wishes to be. Reporting back to home base will depend on what she’s facing at any given time.

She’ll choose the diet she wishes to follow. She’ll manage her laundry.

Now a debit card, now a meal plan card, now a campus services account. Credit cards marketers will chase after her while student loan servicers will be circling in the waters around her.

Maya might meet lifelong friends on her first day in her residence hall, or not. First roommates are as random and they are important.

Her current plans are to pursue mathematics and engineering with an eye toward sustainable energy. In other words, you and I have a stake in her success.

Maya’s going to change. She’ll be free to reinvent herself. And as soon those know and love her become accustomed to the new Maya Vezner, she’ll change again.

* David Bowie

The actor and playwright in residence here at our humble coffee shop is a perfect fool and an absolute genius.

Shakespeare’s ‘fools’ are anything but. They provide wit and wisdom to the fevered souls in his tragedies.

As an actor Ron has played Feste, Touchstone, Trinculo and Lear’s unnamed jester.

But actually the Bard isn’t the only son of the sceptered isle Ron has brought to life.

He created a one-person show about Winston Churchill and took it to Off Broadway where it scored an extended run. The work centers on the chillingly prescient Iron Curtain speech the former prime minister delivered in Iowa in 1946.

He and Winston returned to sell out to rave reviews in Chicago as well.

Ron Perfect-Pitch Keaton started out as a song-and-dance guy. His studies of the International Phonetic Alphabet allow him to conjure up dialects ranging from an Irish brogue to a Wyoming drawl to a Churchillian growl.

The stage is the only honest work Ron’s ever considered. He’s grown from one type of role to another, working every year straight over the past half century.

“This is what I am.” he says. Even during those early years of palpable stage fright he needed to perform to stay whole. God knows I don’t do this for the money, he says with a well-rehearsed eye roll.

A performance is measured by what an audience gives back. Gasps, laughs and silences speak volumes to a performer. By the end of the first act Ron knows if he’s earned his bow.

His is a no-nonsense 90º bend at the waist with arms hanging loosely down.