9/21/2018 Someone mentioned not finding the date easily, so I’ll put it up here.
This is a hard morning to write: Facing a very busy weekend, thinking about preaching tonight in Chattanooga, travel tomorrow, enjoying the fellowship of several hundred people, and not missing the opportunity to spend a moment with each of them! That’s a tall order for slightly less than two days and a couple hundred miles. But, it is worthwhile, and I will enjoy every minute of it. (It will include about 6 sermons by great preachers and enduring my own.)
SIMH—The Prayer —by Celine Dion and many duet partners. It isn’t that I like this song or “prayer,” particularly. It’s one of those from which the music rolling through my head more than the lyrics. It is very well done by all who’ve recorded it. (Perhaps I need to apply the principle behind this prayer to my busy weekend mentioned in the paragraph above.)
I wonder, if I took a poll, how many men get up and 1, have a wife who fixes them breakfast, or 2, fix their own, or 3, leave home having not eaten. There’s more than one reason this interest’s me. I discovered years ago my day would go better if I truly ate a good breakfast. But then, many things entered into our lives and got in the way of that happening every morning, so we made other choices. Although Barb has always risen to the task of fixing me great breakfasts (I never new blueberry muffins existed till after she made them—and I’ve never eaten better than hers!) However, for most of our 27 Texas years I left the house to get breakfast about 5 days a week.
In Texas, in 1986, I didn’t know but a few people so getting out “amongst ‘em” each morning was a way to get to know more, faster. That habit is addicting. It’s as if your world will fall apart if you somehow don’t get to your place at the cafe! At the first I was in a drugstore which had a cafe in the back corner. What a great experience! We had a table for four (a 4-top) and most often had from 3 to 7 guys there. Sooo many good stories from those conversations!
After several years and management changes we sought a better coffee shop and found it downtown. There, we had a 6-top which usually had from 4-10 guys. The last coffee shop we frequented was the best of the bunch, aesthetically. They were each great shops in personality and comfortably, but the last one had easy chairs, straight chairs, central coffee table, and better breakfast foods like muffins, breakfast bars, and yogurts! And wonderful owners and staff who loved us!
Some of the “guys” were at all these locations, but new ones joined in, a few moved away, some came in rarely, a few everyday. I miss that here in NE AL. We lack a good coffee shop atmosphere and good breakfast foods in it. …but not for long. Just heard a substantiated rumor yesterday which says good things are going to be happening here on the food service front! I’m looking forward to it.
There’ll be a few coffee shop stories here from time to time. If I remember it, there’ll be a good one tomorrow.
Thanks for reading, the Elder
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