I sit in the Redlands Starbucks on Stuart Street. Everybody is on their cellphones. There is a couple to my left and the lady is talking/yelling as if her companion is at the bottom of a deep canyon.
Starbucks is my place during football season. A vente coffee, large cup of ice water, and bagel with cream cheese and I’m set. A comfy leather chair is also essential. And I have one.
Too many corporate coffee emporiums are uncomfortable. Tiny tables and straight-back wood chairs. They’re for millennials. The intent is to get ’em in, get their $8 and get ’em out. Not me. Homey don’t play that game.
Back in the early 1980s, I haunted a coffee house in Berkeley. It had worn leather couches and matching padded chairs. Newspapers were spread about. Once, I asked a pseudo-intellectual if I could read his Green Sheet (sports section) and I reached for it. He said “no.” What a turd.
There were no cell phones or laptops then. Nobody even had home computers. Even Tandy Model 80s (the infamous Trash-80s) were in the future. Of course, this forced people to talk to each other. But maybe that was a good thing.
Main Street Dog 