I belong to two coffee klatches, but none of us call it that. If we did, we\u2019d be expelled. We just say, \u201cI have coffee with the boys in the morning.\u201d One group meets at Starbucks, in Ormond Beach, Florida. The other assembles at the Owego Kitchen and Carols Coffee & Art Bar, in Owego, N.Y. Both are loud, boisterous and disruptive to the profitability of the establishments, yet we are tolerated, and for that, grateful. <\/p>\n
Each klatch is a closed society, though guests and visitors do pop in and out on occasion; full membership must be earned. It takes a while to fit in. We\u2019ve added two new members (Eric and Mike) to the Owego klatch over the past few years. I\u2019m the newcomer in Ormond Beach. Both groups have similar rules, codes of conversation, so to speak. Have a \u201cstory\u201d to tell? Some neat, or dreadful experience you want to relate? Good luck with that! The floor is never yielded completely, no matter how compelling the experience you wish to talk about. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not \u201cshow and tell.\u201d It\u2019s \u201cgroup-tell.\u201d Daren, of the Owego klatch, often has something to share. He\u2019s active, travels, and things happen to him. He gets into a lot of predicaments. Some, by simple bad luck. Some, because he\u2019s a stand-up guy who steps in to lend a hand or straighten out a mess. But, his best stories are those where he\u2019s as hapless as the rest of us. Like, the time he chased a bat around his bedroom wielding a tennis racquet or tried to convince a squirrel it didn\u2019t really want to build a nest in his attic. Each of those episodes had their hilarious moments, but nothing compared to his macho strut across a nite spot in New York City in his salad days, with a long stream of toilet paper dragging from the heel of his shoe. (Revealed in print for the 3rd time. Sorry Daren).<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter how intriguing or funny his story may be; he gets no more than 30 seconds to tell the tale before we interrupt and take the discussion in another direction or replace it with our own experience. He waits and grabs it back, and rushes to get more of the tale told. But, it ain\u2019t gunna be that easy. We all talk, or nobody talks. It\u2019s what keeps the klatch going; no one can bore the group for any length of time. The Ormond Beach klatch is the same, though people in that group resist interruptions with more vigor. It does them no good. <\/p>\n
Tony, a former member of the Owego klatch, got so used to being interrupted that when he moved to the west coast of Florida and joined a bunch of locals for morning coffee, they thought he had an affliction. They were puzzled by his pauses after each sentence. He was expecting to be interrupted, but the group didn\u2019t do that. They wondered, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with this guy; he can\u2019t sustain a normal conversation?\u201d He told me it took several months to stop talking in an erratic fashion. Of course, I interrupted him as he related this to me. <\/p>\n
Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com<\/a> – past articles at www.oldcootwisdom.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I belong to two coffee klatches, but none of us call it that. If we did, we\u2019d be expelled. We just say, \u201cI have coffee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":65041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\n