“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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