Coffee Shop Denizens

One of the luxuries that Don and I allow ourselves these days is a good cup of cappuccino served in porcelain mugs. Our few months in Europe has made us such coffee snobs.  We got used to the quaint, little coffee shops that provide parlorlike settings furnished with flowered sofas and flawlessly varnished coffee tables. Cappuccino and latté are served in delicate little porcelain cups complete with saucers lined with dainty cloth doilies and accompanied by semi-sweet well-frosted pastry.

In the late mornings or mid afternoons, we head to our favorite Starbucks. Sometimes when Don feels extra lighthearted, he mischievously announces to the barista, “I’d like two tall blondes, please.” Then with a smart-alecky grin on his face, he waits for the barista’s announcement of “Major” and joins me at the table I usually choose, right next to the glass window, so we can watch the world go by.

When we happen to pick the wrong time for coffee, we sometimes find ourselves in the midst of the young throng that have just let out from the high school or college close to Starbucks.  Most of the time I find myself irritated at this.  Our quiet and profound theological or historical discussions get interrupted by these young people who are so self-absorbed.  All they think about is getting their orders and laughing at things that have long been out of my own life, or have never been in my young life.  “Oh, did you see the tweet from . . .”  “I like your tablet.  It is so cool.” “We went to see ‘Argo’. Wow.” Then they would park at whatever table they can find, continuing discussions that sound like foreign language to me.  They would pass around those smart phones, or whatever they call it, to look at pictures and laugh at them while spooning the cream off of their frappuccinos.

After I get past the rude interruption that accompanies this noisy crowd, I start looking at them more closely.  I wonder if I was much like these young kids when I was their age.  Well, of course.  It was a different time, different era, but I, too, had the same self-absorption and “I didn’t care” attitude. When I was young, the whole universe revolved around me.  And when stuff in my universe did not go the direction I wanted, I would fret and wonder why and where I’ve lost control, and more often than not, I would think it was somebody else’s fault.  George Bernard Shaw said, “Youth is wasted on the young.”  Blessed is the young person who has an old wise person who helps ease him/her to adulthood.  The old can show him the minefields that destroy lives.  And equally blessed is the old person who gets past the noise and bravado of the young, for he, too, can learn from him about the new world of Twitter, Facebook, Email, Google, Beyonce, Snoopy Dog, “Survivors”, etc.  If they would allow it, they both can help transition each other into new, strange worlds.

 

If the old would only remember that they were once young, and the young would realize that someday they, too, would grow old. . . .