Southern Hospitality

Well, to use up time productively on a very sunny Thursday I walked to the community coffee shop to search for sweet used furniture online. Sitting in the sun on a couch by the window I was in my own little world of velvet couches, plaid ottomans and "vintage" rockers, when my musings were interrupted by a jolly voice with a strong southern inflection asking, "mind if I set there next to you on that couch honey?" I was startled, "certainly"I answered without thinking, my voice sounding edgy and squeaky compared to the smooth, rounded drawl that had just knocked me out of my home-making reverie. A rotund elderly man plopped himself beside me on the creaky leather with a plate brimming with crumbling coffee cake and cup of steaming coffee. He immediately began to strike up conversation. I was taken aback. After two years of violent yet silent elbow bumping in every coffee shop I ventured into while in the island cement jungle called Manhattan I had talked to no one aside from creepy men hoping for a girl dumb enough to fall for their creepy advances. I had been in the coffee shop in quaint Wyndhurst for 2 hours and beside the baristas and dreadlocked owner I had only seen approximately four other people and had certainly not spoken to anyone. He was talking away and I, still inadvertently  in "Manhattan Mode" was nodding politely, still holding my guard up undeniably. He was talking about marriage I think and then asked why I was here and I told him I had come with my husband. "So how long you lived in Lynchburg" the white haired gentleman asked me after taking a messy bite of the crumbly cake. "Um, six days", I answered, hesitant to dish out personal info but slowly giving in to his disarming ways. His eyebrows shot up. "And how long've you been married?" "Welll, about three weeks." I said this with a little smile. His jolly voice turned into a very jolly laugh as he eyed me as if I was actually a little newborn baby who he'd previously thought was at least a teenager. He said he and his wife were coming up on their 50th anniversary. "I told my wife, I said, we's coming up on 50 years (now my wife she doesn't like to let go of the money) I says, we're goin to Europe. We have the money, so what if it costs fifteen or twenty thousand? And we're going to Europe for a month, we're gonna go to Europe." Here he launched into a lengthy explanation of the falsity of the term "Scotch-Irish" and elaborated a bit on Scottish history and Irish history and how his surname, Calhoun, was of a specific Scotch origin. I learned he and his wife would be spending half of the trip in Scotland, where "things don't even get started till late August" and then because of his wife's Swiss heritage they would spend the remainder of the trip in Switzerland. Here he asked if I liked marriage and I said "yes, yes", and then he began to expostulate about the beauty of his wife. "Ah now my wife, my wife is so beautiful. I love 'er. I tell these young women, they needn't worry cause I like older women so these young ones, they don't have to worry." I laughed and then listened as he elaborated on the beauty of his wife, how skinny she was when they met, how it was a husband's job to "feed his wife good" and did my husband feed me? "Tell him to feed you! It's his job!" He explained in a mischievous voice how his wife had once been a "size six" and now was "Ooh she's maybe a 12! Or maybe a 14 or a 16!" He was quite pleased. Then out of his mouth tumbled this amusing story. "Well, the other day I come in the house after some yard fixin' and I walk to the back of the house and, I didn't know it, but my wife was just gettin outta the shower, and I go into the bedroom and I sits down (here he sort of hunched down and giggled like a little boy) and I stars watching her and she's naked as a jaybird! And I starts whistlin!" Here he looked at me proudly and a bit sheepishly, and laughed. It was awesome to see a man still so in love with his wife, such a friendly individual. Such stories and experiences! He was 79, his wife 81. From Maryland. An electrical engineer. A Christian man. "Now you have a good marriage, it was nice meeting you" he said as he got ready to get up and shook my hand, "Remember to enjoooy each other. Don't ever get to the point where you're upset with him or he's upset with you and you don't wanna talk to each other. Always talk to each other. And God bless you, it was nice meetin' you, I like meetin new people. That's what we need to do, talk to meet people, I like meetin' new people..." and his voice faded as he headed away toward the door to meet his wife.

I didn't find any good furniture, but my day was unexpectedly and wonderfully blessed by that surprise interaction with "Mr. Calhoun".

P.S. Mr. Calhoun also dabbles in oil painting and showed me where one of his "studies" hangs on the wall here at Muse. He had me look at it then asked "Now what's a'wrong with that painting? Can ya see?" I studied the seascape and said, "The perspective maybe?" just grasping at something to make him happy. "On one side of the lighthouse the waves are a-goin' out and on the other side they're a-goin' in!"