One of our writing prompts for creative nonfiction writing involved observing a place where we don't normally go. I used my car garage piece for this, but someone in my class used a local coffee shop. This particular coffee shop is a hippie establishment, according to the taxi service I use too much. I like going our town's hippie coffee shop especially because they make biscuits and gravy to order. I also like the two regulars who frequent the shop when I like to go, early. Enter the "character" that one of my peers wrote about in her creative piece. When I see him there, I know instantly he is the one she wrote about, I wonder why he has just recently started using the shop since he is a local, and I wonder what percent of labeling a person a "character" is age based. I cannot wait to be more of a "character". Tired of the word? What is wrong with being a unique human being?!

Since there are only ever a maximum of four people in the room, we all are part of the conversation. There is one friend of a close friend who I'd like to get to know better, talking about his experience working in the navy. There is the campus grounds worker who likes rock and roll and who I also have come to know in this small town. There is the amazing cook/server who let me in early when I was sitting out in the freezing cold. I like her humanity. Finally, there's the man with the white feather in his hat. He sticks his foot in everyone's conversation, which feels odd, but also could be defended in a court of law as perfectly normal. Anyway, he is the "character". When the other two men leave, the old man comes up to me and mentions that he grows some good stuff to smoke, indicating with his fingers against his mouth how it's done. I ask him if he means tobacco. I am joking because I have a sense of what he means. But he proceeds to explain in a hushed voice that he means marijuana.

Maybe the taxi drivers are right about this establishment, maybe it is a hippie place. Maybe my classmate is right about the man being a character. Either way, it doesn't bother me one bit. I see my favorite professors come here. And Christian students gone astray, or lost in this small town. It is my new favorite place probably because of the marijuana man/men. Honestly I am pretty burnt out on the other coffee shop in town. I wish I had a picture to leave you of my "character," but I don't want to get him in trouble. Considering who reads this, though, he might gain business.