This is my clean, well-lighted place. As you can see, where I grew up, such a place is often first a place to come into from the cold. The Empire Diner in Herkimer, NY is a symbol for me. It’s where I want hot coffee and a friendly smile on a gray winter day. It speaks to the Mohawk Valley before Wal-Mart came in and sped up the already-in-progress decline of all the old mom and pop outfits: The Cozy Nook, Aiello’s Market, Big M (once “Foodland”), Shibley’s, The News Room, and many others.
Beth and I had a very early breakfast at the Empire on our wedding day. It became special to us in part because when we were younger and home from college, we’d walk around Mohawk and Herkimer for hours. Many of those times, we’d end up in a familiar booth, sipping coffee and picking songs from the jukebox at the Empire Diner.
I also like to go there alone, and pull up to a stool at the counter. It’s the kind of place where you can do that and not feel anxious. In fact, hitting the counter might score you some gratis grub: the new owners, I’m told, have retained an old tradition whereby whenever a train is heard passing through, they spin a wheel and someone at the counter wins a free meal.
A few years ago the building sat dormant, which made me inordinately depressed. Every time I go home, it seems another bastion of the old days is gone. I was very pleased when some good souls felt the pull of the classic train-car style diner, and purchased and re-opened it. I was even happier when I ate lunch there last summer and discovered that the new owners were making spectacular cheeseburgers. I mean, I’ve sought out good burgers all over the country. And the Empire Diner is making really good burgers. But for me, it’s always been about breakfast. The breakfast is at least as good as it ever was.
I love my clean, well-lighted place–and I like to hear others’ stories of their own. I’d like to hear from you. Where’s your clean, well-lighted place? What makes it special? Tell me about it. Show me a picture if you have one.
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My favorite Starbucks serves the local seminary and Gordon College, so it’s an odd juxtaposition of communities. Cliched groups of well-heeled moms gather in one corner with preschool children, while two burly guys with mohawks pray earnestly and loudly by the cheesy fireplace. Young adults pace and mutter phrases in Greek and Hebrew. The manager discusses Kierkegaard and Camus. I’ve heard students practicing sermons over coffee.
At this Starbucks, I’ve met perfect strangers who turn out to be twice-removed from someone in my past. Sometimes I want to shout that this is the weirdest Starbucks on earth– in the same way I wanted to shout at my own Christian college, or at my husband’s seminary friends, “the world isn’t really like this.” But at other times I love hovering around the edges of this odd community, dipping in and out as I please. It’s a language I used to speak, an innocence I once held dear.
I would patronize the local coffee shops, but they close too early—I grade papers at this Starbucks until they throw me out at ten.
In the daylight I drink coffee. At night I drink a London Fog (Earl Grey tea with steamed milk and a shot of vanilla.) I know it’s only Starbucks, but sometimes it’s the best place on earth.
Thanks, Denise! I absolutely love the idea of wanting to shout, “The world isn’t really like this!” That’s an image right out of Anne Tyler. Thanks for sharing. I like the tension and the idiosyncrasy of your particular place.
The donut shop on the corner of 34th and 5th Ave. in Brooklyn. New owners, new exposed-brick wall, new slick menu with snappy names. I haven’t been there in years, but me and T. Dick spend innumerable nights there (the only 24 hour I’ve ever had in walking distance). We affectionately referred to it as The Playpen (a gentlemen’s club 3 avenues down), to make the girls mad. What I remember are soft lights, 50’s style glitter-spangled counters and tabletops, wise women who could care less about the contents of our conversation waiting the tables, one old man hunched over the same seat every night (literally), clutching a mug of coffee, only leaving to smoke or sweep up the bathroom. Just greasy enough to feel comfortable, gritty enough to feel like home, all night long.
Thanks, Timmy! Good to hear your voice–thank you for sharing. I’m collecting details of these places and the ways that people experience them with the hope of writing about it all soon.
I cannot fully lay down in my place without taking out the furniture (two crates, two stools, a tiny table, and a music stand) and lying diagonally. The place is a tiny room with padded walls in Exeter Music Store. Since moving to Exeter, I have not had much of an opportunity to be with people due to some physical limitations and my wife’s busy life.
Once a week, I cross the Exeter River on String Bridge and walk two blocks to the store. It is in a village storefront, in the old downtown, which is filled with galleries, a toy shop, a consignment shop, an outdoor gear retailer, and a sporting goods store. Rush Limbaugh blasts away on the radio when you enter the shop, so I quickly head for the padded room in the back. You have to squeeze through some tight places to work your way to the back.
I can’t head right into the lesson room because I am always early, so I get caught listening to the radio and a woman warm up for her voice lessons in another of the lesson closets. It is eerie, except every time there is the same old-timer waiting for his blues guitar lessons in yet another closet. He is usually wearing pants rolled up past his socks. He must be in his late 60’s or early 70’s, and he only began playing guitar two years ago. He usually tells me something interesting about guitars or music. By then, I don’t even notice Rush or the singer.
Kyle follows me in, a few minutes later, then we contort our way into the room with our guitars. Kyle is 20 with dark hair past the shoulders. When he shuts the door, the place becomes its own fixed and defined space insulating us from the outside and putting us in a close proximity to each other that would not be possible in any other social setting. I always make sure that I brush my teeth before I go.
I’ve written so much getting into the place maybe because, it is hard to describe what happens there…guitar lessons, I guess.
Beautiful, Shooter. I’m trying to understand what our special places mean, what they indicate about us and our world. I love the diversity of experience. A space where art is taught and created is especially important, at least to many of us. Thank you for a unique contribution. I will dwell on it. I will inhabit your words and your spirit, if not your place!
Actually, I was reading “Kilimanjaro and other stories” when you posted this. Ray led me to Hemingway.
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