On the Importance of Talking with Strangers in Line at the Coffee Shop

I stop at a coffee shop in Gettysburg and get a cold brew. In the case by the cash register, they have a bacon, egg, and cheese roll. The young lady behind the counter tells me, "Think of it like a cinnamon roll, but instead of cinnamon it's bacon, egg, and cheese."

There are two local cops standing next to the counter waiting for their coffee. The one chimes in and says, "It's really good." I'm sold.

We start shooting the shit. Vinny has been a cop since he was 19 years old. We've both got ties to Baltimore City. I taught high school there and broke up riots. He worked for the Maryland Transit Authority. But he lived up in the countryside, closer to the Pennsylvania border. One rotation stuck him with a two hour commute each way. But he had a family at home. Instead of spending four hours a day in traffic, he wanted to spend that time with his wife and kids. So he ended up as cop in a small town in Pennsylvania.

We talk about the world. About how society has become unglued. We all agree that something happened during Covid. Everything that was hanging on or hanging together by a thread -- it came undone. I say they never should have closed the schools. There's a whole generation of kids who are basically lost. Vinny agrees. He worked as a school resource officer for a stretch. He remembers how the school would give out bagged lunches for the kids to take home if bad weather was coming the next day. Because for lots of those kids, there was no food at home. He gets it. I get it. We get it.

We talk for 30 minutes. About everything. I tell him, "Skid row came on the radio the other day. And they called it classic rock." He laughs. "Same thing, man! I heard 18 and Life the other day and they called it classic rock. On a radio station that used to play 60s and 70s music and call that the classics."

We talk about the next phase of life. He can get out in a couple years. Before he's 50. Everybody tells him he's crazy. That he should wait. Put in another 4 or 5 years. I say he's not crazy at all. I say he should get out at 49. He'll get a decent pension. He's got some money saved. He'll be fine. He won't be rich. But he'll be fine.

"You get out at 49, and you'll still be in the prime of your life. You'll still feel good. You'll have energy to do whatever you want. You'll probably have a long stretch of really good years ahead of you."

He asks what about me. Well, I dream of the day when I can just wake up, go for a hike, come home, and write. I have all sorts of books to write and stories to tell. I could have become a writer early and abandoned the world. But that wasn't real enough for me. I needed to be in the thick of all the chaos for a bit. For a while. For decades, really. And now I have 30 years worth of things to say.

Vinny says he thinks about getting a job delivering flowers. For some small, local flower service. It will be like walking the beat. He'll get to walk around town, see everyone out and about, stop in at all the little shops and check on everyone. But with no stress.

I say I don't want an office. A business phone number. A business email. Matter of fact, I might not want any email address at all. I just want to wake up, spend time with the people I love, go out into town and stroll down the street like a man who is in no particular hurry and who doesn't have anywhere pressing to go.

Vinny has to bounce. He says there's a rookie starting today. His first day on the job. He has to go meet him up the street. We give each other a big hug. I tell him to be safe out there. And I say that I hope I order flowers five years from now, and he shows up to deliver them.

People need people. People need society. People need the commons. People need to run into each other at the coffee shop. Or the hardware store. Or the post office. And people need that more than they realize.

We all have our own little worlds. Our own family or tribe. But it takes more than that. There is a fabric that weaves us all together. There is this thread of humanity that flows through us all and through the world. When we embrace that thread of humanity and tap into that current, it makes us stronger. It makes us more whole. It makes us more human.

JP