Most mornings, I go into Stewart’s (a regional convenience store chain) to get some coffee and I always look over at the table by the window where the older men come to meet and talk in the morning. I call it Grunt N’ Grumble.

I wonder when I see these men if this is the only time in their lives when they open up to one another, or if they did it when they were young. I doubt it.

Stewart makes it clear that men are welcome to come in and have a coffee and yak for much of the morning. It’s good of them to do that, there aren’t too many gathering spots open to me around my town.

I wonder also if I could ever be one of those men, laughing and gossiping and sharing stories with one another. I never see any newcomers or flatlanders in those windows, I’m not sure we’d have a lot to talk about.

I don’t really make friends in that way, although I am starting to join my friends for lunch at Jean’s once, in a while, you know what the man said, the heart breaks and breaks and breaks until it opens.