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May 19, 2013

Morning Decaf with a Big Surly Biker.

“I like my coffee black, my beer from Germany, wine from Burgundy, the darker, the better. I like my heroes complicated and brooding, James Dean in oiled leather, leaning on a motorcycle. You know the color. (“Ode to Chocolate”)” ~  Barbara Crooker

I had decaf with a biker this morning—an ominous and quite surly sort of fellow.

We talked about life and politics and things…and then he bought me one of those miniature egg sandwiches.

And, then I asked him about all of his military patches, I was most interested in the Purple Heart he had pinned to his hat.

“I got that in ‘Nam,” he said, somewhat matter-of-factly,”pulled three of my buddies off of a field during a maneuver.”

What he didn’t include were the words, “under heavy enemy fire”—because, real heroes never really have to.

So, I asked him directly, “How did you do that? What went through your head?”

To which he replied,

“Well, not much, I guess—I was pretty stoned out of my gourd.”

Apparently, his buddies look a bit like smooth leather balls on a high school football field.

And, that, my dear friends, is just how I spent my morning.

People often ask me, “Where do you find your inspiration to write?”

To which I may now reply,

“Inspiration will always find you, my dear—even when sitting at a coffee shop sipping decaf with a biker.

 

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Ed: Kate Bartolotta

 

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