I have every intention of trying to keep this blog “apolitical.” This is a book author’s blog, not a politician’s. My focus is on books, words, stories, and how those things affect our lives. However, in this time in which we live, our conversations can easily reach into that arena with little to no effort. A casual statement can take you out faster than a line-drive over the pitcher’s mound. I also can’t dismiss the fact that I have my own views and core beliefs which shape my perspective, as do we all. Some of those beliefs came from the community in which I grew up.
The first years of my life were spent along the coast and in the hills of Kentucky at my grandparents’ house. As a Navy kid, we moved several times and I had new schools, new friends, and new neighborhoods with which to become accustomed. When my dad retired, we settled down in a small Oklahoma town. I spent the better part of my life in that little town, met my wife, and raised my kids. As far as I’m concerned, I’m small town and most of my memories are small town as well.
You know that place in your mind where you store those warm memories you call upon from time to time? I have one too. It is a place where those thoughts, reminders, and memories are kept safe and close, but not cramped. Perhaps you imagine that spot in your mind to be as comfortable as a cottage in the woods, as I’ve heard one friend describe it. A place where a warm fire burns above a hearth of stone, along with a pot of stew — seasoned liberally with heavenly herbs and spices, the fragrance soothingly wafting through the air. Cozy slippers and quilts await to fight off the cold fingers of life.
Maybe those thoughts are your hammock between two palms which wave in the breeze at the edge of a sandy beach, or maybe they are your mountain meadow with a cool rushing spring meandering through it. Perhaps they are very simply just what they are, warm memories. The point is, we hold on to those thoughts that give us comfort in troubled times or cause us to smile when they drift in between the cracks of reality. For me, there’s a lot of “small town” in those memories. I can call upon those memories which helped to shape my life, which give me courage to face the difficulties, and which ask me to pass on what I’ve experienced. They make their way into my writing and into my outlook.
As a young boy I was privileged to have a paper route. Though at the time it may have caused me to be just a bit of a target for harassment among a few peers, I’m proud of that. I’m happy my parents let me learn to work at a young age. Although I did use my bike from time to time to deliver papers (usually in the summer), most of the time my dad helped me by providing transportation and a toss out the driver’s side window which would make a southpaw swell with envy. Later on when I quit delivering papers, he kept it up. I guess he figured he was up early anyway.
The day began early, usually around five in the morning. We picked up our paper bundles, rolled and banded them, and delivered them before school. As long as the route truck was on time, we often ended by going up to the local cafe before I had to get home and ready for school.
One of those strong memories upon which I reflect was built by men who had no idea what they were building or that they were building anything at all. They did what men do, what their fathers taught them, and perhaps their grandfathers before. They treated each other with civility, respect, and a sense of community. A few of those men are still around, but their numbers have dwindled as life took its toll.
I’m talking really great men. No, not senators or famous people… not great because they made history… not men who shaped the world, but men who shaped my world. They were men you wanted to know. Men who had interesting stories, humor, integrity, faith, bumps, scars, flaws, faults, and fractures. They weren’t perfect, they were human, and they saw community as a way of life. Perhaps in today’s world they wouldn’t be valued at all. Someone would hone in on one of those faults, flaws, or scars and magnify it until it became the only thing anyone could see. But to me they were examples of people who might be a little rough around the edges and hiding a diamond in the center.
As I look back, I realize I how important it was to me and my education as a youth to spend those mornings at the cafe with my father and men like him. It was valuable to hear their conversations, see their actions, and watch the interaction between them. They instilled in me, without effort, the idea that it is okay to disagree, that you don’t have to sacrifice your principles to treat someone with respect, and that people of opposing views can still get along if they choose to get along.
The coffee-drinkers’ table was really about four or five tables butted together. It was placed close to the server’s station which made it easier to refill those cups. If the tables filled, another table was added or another row was started a few feet away. Of course, back then smoking was allowed, but usually the smokers sat at one end of the table, sharing an ashtray. Most of the men at the table were just drinking coffee, but some were filling up on a full breakfast order or a cinnamon roll before heading off to work.
There were caps of varying colors which had been provided by the booster club, the bank, tractor dealers, seed dealers, feed yards, and oilfield companies. Cowboy hats and the occasional stocking cap made their way into the mix. It was a time when some of those hats would still be taken off when they entered the building and hung on the hat-tree by the door or off the corner of a chair back, others remained firmly planted upon their owners heads adding a bit of color to a plaid, or denim background.
Flannel shirts, pearl snap western shirts, t-shirts, blue jeans and Dickies were the dress of choice. Cowboy boots, muck boots, steel-toed Red Wings, and rough looking wingtips could be found under those tables. Callouses, liver spots, grease stains, chapped skin, and arthritic joints shaped and decorated the hands which lifted those stoneware coffee cups. In many ways they reminded me of the friends and family, mostly coal miners, my grandfather sat around with in Kentucky.
While I drank a cup of coffee (which was heavily laced with cream and sugar back then), occasionally tea or a Coke, I listened to their conversations. Sometimes, I was invisible as the conversations took on more colorful verbiage, tone, and subject matter with the flow of the discussion; other times their words were probably tempered for my ears. There might be another kid or two there among them, especially during the summer. Later on I would frequently be joined by my brother, and though I’m sure others experience the same, I can remember many times when I was the only junior coffee drinker.
Those men argued about farming ideas, talked about the good and bad of the oilfield, and disagreed bitterly over politics. They discussed the fair price of wheat and the impact of trade embargoes. They traded jabs and played tricks. They described the quality of the cattle that ran through the last auction at the sale barn. They ribbed each other over who shot the bigger buck, the largest pheasant, or caught the biggest fish, and told stories about the ones that got away. To be sure there was ample amount of gossip and many a bawdy tale which sailed over my head. Some of those conversations could be filled with heated emotion, and sometimes those heated conversations carried over from one day to the next. They weren’t pushovers; when they had an opinion, they held to it like an old hound with a bone.
Yet, unlike the vicious attacks we see on Facebook and Twitter today — words meant not to voice disagreement, but to destroy their adversaries — these men never seemed to let their disagreements disintegrate into hate. They didn’t allow their discord to create walls or let those differences ride upon their shoulders. I’m sure beyond my young eyes there were ruffled feathers, but they weren’t pranced around like a peacock on display. Maybe someone left that building bent out of shape, but they still came back the next day and sat down with the same men at the same table. I’m sure there were feuds and bruised egos, but the community went on. The coffee table never emptied, or was boycotted, or struggled to attract members. They still seemed to treat each other with respect. They still came together when someone was in need, and they still reached into their pockets to pay for another man’s coffee or even a meal.
When it came time to pay up, it seemed like someone always spoke up with an, “I’ll get it.” They paid for each other’s coffee or even breakfast. They didn’t keep track of who owed who. I never saw them sit at the table and divvy up the ticket. They simply handed the waitress some money and paid for the whole table. Sometimes two or three of them would just place some bills in a pile to cover the group. There were always tips left by the empty cups; tips which were often considerably larger than the sixty cent cost of the coffee. Paying for a whole table probably never averaged more than fifteen or twenty dollars, but it was the thought that counts. The acts of courtesy, respect, and generosity.
Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, Christian church members, and non-believers debated the Bible, the government, the Ag prices, and whether the lousy referee at the high school basketball game should have been given a complimentary optometrist appointment or run out of town on a rail. Even after a Republican versus Democrat full assault battle, they laughed, shook hands, and slapped shoulders as they left the building. From there they went their different ways, to their different occupations, in their different cars and trucks. They waved as they passed each other on the road. And the next day, they did it all over again.
If your dad or grandfather, or uncle was at that table or another table in another little cafe, I salute you. You know the kind of people I’m talking about. You know that they knew how to make a community and take care of a neighbor. You know “small town” and you probably have some of that in you as well. It’s time we passed it on.
