My Town

I walked to our bank this morning to get some new check registers. I am not a fan of on-line bill-paying. —I like to write checks with a fancy pen because it makes me feel old-fashioned, even when I am paying for a high-speed cable connection. I ran out of lines in my current register, so off to the bank with me.

Our bank is very small, local, and only a few blocks away. They know me by name: After my first couple of visits, the tellers stopped asking for my ID. With one exception--a teller who is not so much mean as a little socially inept--the staff are all really friendly and personable. There is never a line.

I carried a travel mug with me to the bank this morning because afterwards I wanted to get some coffee from a place called the Flying Bean. I go there sometimes because the coffee is usually good and because I rarely see anyone buying coffee there, so I feel a little sorry for them. It'’s an odd establishment--it is a little shed, about 3 feet by 9 feet, sticking out on the sidewalk, attached to a larger row of buildings on the main street downtown. It is sort of a caffeine-dispensing architectural barnacle.

The bearded young man crammed into the Flying Bean today asked me if I wanted to rinse my mug out before he filled it. I said, "“No, it should be fine,"” because I had just pulled it from the cupboard. "“This coffee is from Yemen,"” he said. "“Well, first it went to the roasters in Chicago, then it came to me, but it'’s originally from Yemen."”

It'’s about 60 degrees out, and the sky looks a mildly threatening to the west, like rain is considering falling sometime today. It'’s a nice spring morning with a slightly wet feeling to it, a juicy morning in a small town.