Coffee houses as hotbeds of sedition

I was watching a program on the educational channel on TV last night about the history of coffee and coffee houses. It talked about how coffee was viewed as a drug that altered mood and awareness. Coffee beans became a valuable commodity and were jealously guarded so that they couldn't be grown by just anyone, just anywhere. In Europe and the Middle East, coffee houses came to be seen by those in power, and with power to lose, as hotbeds of political discussion and even sedition.

Both the elite and the working class could gather in their respective groupings to exchange views and confabulate on any number of subjects not open for discussion in the religious places of worship at the time. Intellectuals of means could spend leisurely hours debating and learning from one another. Working class folk could gather on the way home from work where the conversation could almost be considered the equivalent of our modern internet.

A couple of days ago I was sitting in my local cafe listening to three fellows in their twenties debate the merits of environmental controls. Their voices increased in volume each time the ball of discussion was bounced back to each of them. I'm not sure if you could say they learned from one another and by the time they left it wasn't clear if anyone had convinced anyone else of anything. It was more like they kept producing crudely sharpened arguments from a quiver on their backs and aiming them at the other combatants. One of them was on his way out the door, with his cycling helmet on his head when he was enticed to stay and make his point. They were working up a lather and enjoying themselves although they looked very serious. It's a good thing that my pals hadn't arrived yet because we would have had to compete with the volume. The 'barrista', Stavroula, rolled her eyes and said she's used to this. Apparently they do it regularly and with equal gusto each time.

It was a pleasure for me to see people taking a stand and arguing for it. I am disheartened by the oft-present apathy and bitter comments that I hear around me with increasing frequency. An argument of that volume and passion suggests to me that these are young men who care about the world and have opinions about what we can do to make it a better place. Thank God for that. Now if we could just tempt them to get involved in community affairs.

As I watched the program on TV I was thinking about my little coffee klatch. There are five of us in the core group and numerous visitors who drop in on a regular or semi-regular basis. There's the instigator of the group, Nori, who is originally from Germany. She still speaks with a clearly identifiable accent and we have all picked up many of her quirky bilingual phrases. Nori and Keith are artists who work from home. Nori has MS and is in a wheelchair. Rain or shine, she arrives for coffee at just after 1:30 pm with Keith pushing the chair.

We started out in another cafe a few doors further north on the same street but they had an electrical fire that caused us to go looking for a new spot. The original place was where Nori and her partner Keith first met Axel, although Nori and Kieth have moved from several other cafes over the years. Axel was also a regular. He's retired and makes the 20 minute walk down to the cafe from his apartment every day to have an espresso and do the crossword puzzle in the paper. The trio acquired me in the same spot. Nori decided after seeing me in there on several occasions, that I looked interesting, and found an opportunity to introduce herself and Keith. Four or five months later we added our fifth member, Spencer, who is a recently retired biochemist and presently an artist as well, a painter.

I'm the baby of the group. Nori and Spencer are almost the same age at ten years older than me, and Keith and Axel are almost the same age at twenty years senior to that. Together we span 30 years. Most days we are together for about an hour. Lena, who runs the cafe, or one of her servers, knows us all by name and what we drink. All we do when we arrive is call out hello. Sometimes we don't even need to do that. We've been coming in there for about two years now and people like us are the staples of the business. Lena looks after us well. My photograph on the left was taken in the cafe over this past winter by one of the visitors to the group.

That's all for today as this is getting a bit long for one posting. Stay tuned and I will continue the saga of my coffee klatch next time.