Evolene seems to have settled into The Harbour nicely. Aside from our chats, she spent her first
week strolling around town introducing herself and asking lots of
questions. She learned pretty quickly
that our coffee shop, Bean Down So Long…, is the best place to start your day
if you want to get the pulse of the community.
The Bean Down (named either after the Doors song or the
Richard Farina book, depending who you talk to) opens at 5:30 so that it can
catch the stream of loggers, mill workers and fishermen who start their day
early. For the first hour it’s a steady
flow of men and women in steel toed boots and…
Sorry. Have to
default to rant mode here and shout at the TV that sits in the corner of my
Shoreline office: What the fuck is wrong with you people!!! Talking heads droning on about how the
shooting this morning at the U.S. Navy shipyard in DC is such a “Tragedy.” When something keeps happening over and over
and over and over, is predictable and preventable, and nobody does anything to
stop it from happening again, at some point it goes beyond being a tragedy and becomes insanity.
Anyway, back to the Bean.
By 5:45 the shop is full of workers standing around waiting their turn
at the coffee station, grabbing donuts and picking up lunches ordered last
night. This madness goes on for a
predictable hour, gradually tapering off.
By the time the last mill manager leaves, the shop is being repopulated
by its second wave of regulars. This group
is older, and is an exclusively male club comprised of retired mill workers and
loggers. The fishermen who belong to
this group don’t like to be referred to as retired because they still go out on
their boats and bring in fish.
Difference is that now they are what purists call “Fair weather bobbers”
meaning they only go out when it sun is shining and the swells are below three
feet.
This collection of baby boomers and the last few Great
Generation members still alive around here, spend more time and less money at
the Bean Down than any other group. Over
a couple of cups of what they call “Joe” and a bagel or two, they rummage through
and solve the problems of the world.
Whether it’s terrorism or tea parties or the name of somebody’s boat, it
all qualifies for serious consideration, debate, and resolution. And they’re pretty good at it. Would be an interesting exercise to try out
some of the solutions they’ve come up with for the Middle East or bank malfeasance.
When the last member of this contingent shuffles his way out
the door he almost invariably has to squeeze past the first lunch hour arrivals. This
influx is the retail and office people who work in businesses up and down
Beecher Street. After they clear out,
The Bean Down tidies up does some prep work for the next day. By 2 o’clock the lights are out and the doors
locked, and The Harbour’s social life moves to Billie’s tavern overlooking the
marina.
Ev has tested the water’s at Billie’s, but nothing beyond a
glass of cider, and never past 7. She’ll
have to stick it out a little later and try something a little stronger to
become part of the conversation there. Worth
it though. The evening stories told over
a pint of ale late in the evening can be very different that the ones that come
out over coffee in the morning.
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