The Old Men

 There is a little fraternity of old men who inhabit, or used to inhabit, the Starbucks on Main street in Evanston nearly every morning. You can't predict the time some will arrive, but some are (were) scheduled; there was a certain fellow who arrived at 7:30 on Sunday morning, so if I wanted to secure one of the comfortable chairs so I could enjoy my cup of coffee before church, I had to be on my toes. Often, if he had beat me to it, I would just come after church for my coffee. That comfortable chair was everything.

The old men do (did) certain things at the coffee shop that were anachronistic. They read newspapers. They would pair up, spontaneously because they had become acquainted with each other through the coffee shop, and talk politics or sports. One man had a little AM radio that he listened to with the one, single earphone that used to be enough for us when all the fidelity we demanded was being able to hear the voices clearly on a talk show. It seemed to me more than once, as I sat there on Sunday morning writing, paying bills, or whatever else I had to do, this is what coffee shops are for.

In "the age of COVID," as we are fond of saying in this little historical nanosecond, it has been deemed irrelevant. Church is closed for a plague that turned out to be exponentially less virulent than originally predicted in March. Coffee shops are closed too. As are restaurants. Sure, you might be able to buy carry out food somewhere that is still lucky enough not to have gone under, but that's not that point. The social aspect is gone, denied to us by our betters, who are doing their own socializing in Florida.

Today, as I drove by the Starbucks on main, I saw one of the old men, the guy who listens to the AM radio, sitting out on the patio in front of the store (because we are allowed to do that!), sipping a coffee. It was cold today and he didn't look comfortable sitting there in his heavy coat, gloves on, ear flaps pulled down on his hat, trying to pretend against all evidence to the contrary that there was some normalcy right now. As I waited to turn left from Main onto Chicago avenue I felt this little tearing at my heart. What will become of him? Does anyone know what the coffee shop means to him? Should I stop and talk to him? Probably I should have. But why are the powers that be so capricious with his fate? Are they ignorant, or cruel, or both? When will we know the answer?

It was a year when people told us we couldn't sing together, and we complied. They told us not to be outside without our faces covered, and many of us covered up. Needless to say, we certainly couldn't dine together --- unless were were members of the empowered, political class.

Lord, look after us and cure us from our madness. We seem unable and unwilling to cure ourselves. And please, look after that old man.