As I type this I’m sitting inside a tiny cafe in Fort Stockton, Texas. The name of the place is Glitzy’s Brew Coffee Shop. It’s the best (and only) java joint in town, and it’s as quaint as can be: T-shirts for sale, country music playing from a nearby speaker, nicknacks left and right, up and down. I’m drinking a delicious iced decaf and eating an equally yummy banana pudding.
Anyhow, I spent a few minutes chatting with the owner, a woman who moved here from Colorado a year ago and desired to operate the town’s best (and only) java joint.
She was lovely. Absolutely lovely. Engaging, funny, curious.
And as I sit here, an unarmed writer in a gun-toting state and likely one of Fort Stockton’s two current liberals (I’m assuming there might be one other—somewhere), I’m reminded that people are people. In the aftermath of two more major American shootings, and with Joe Biden’s plummeting approval ratings, and with Tucker Carlson spewing hate about “white replacement,” and with Roe v. Wade on the brink, and with the temperature rising, rising, rising—I (personally) need to remember that people are good and loving and engaging. When we talk about geography. When we talk about sports. When we talk about family. When the politicians and cable news screamers are set aside.
When we enter a cafe for a cup of coffee.
I know it’s simple.
I know it’s corny.
But I needed to enter Glitzy Coffee and be reminded that folks are OK.
