Geno's On Ambaum

Geno's is a cafe I pass twice each day on the way to and from work. I stopped by this morning to get a cup of coffee and a muffin. The coffee could use some kick and the muffin isn't great, but the atmosphere is warm and it feels good to sit at a square formica table with one of those silver napkin dispensers to keep me company. An old faded carpet covers the floor and the regulars sit and crack jokes about the owner as he pours drinks behind the counter, smiling. The folks exchange stories back and forth - "My granddaughter...she's fourteen going on eighteen". "Yeah. I got a grandson. He's six and going on sixteen!"

The patrons are white. Older. There's a couple in their mid fifties - the man wears those glasses that get darker when he goes outside. Then there's a mother and daugther sipping their neopolitan iced coffees, giggling and laughing with the cook as she comes out front, her apron full of flour. The daughter is about sixty and her mother at least eighty, diminutive, wrinkled and with a freshly coifed hairdo. She's got big, bright eyes behind thick glasses and a smile that has greeted many a weary traveler.

They all know each other. Familiar. They know each others' ways, moods and just the way they like their coffee.

A top forty song croons out of a speaker in the corner of the room, the singer pleading for his lost love, for a connection. And here are folks catching up, talking, ignoring the drama in the newspaper scattered haphazard across the table.

The owner, with a piece of coffee cake, sits down with the mother and daughter, joined by his wife, the cook.

Geno's is a family-run joint. Dad and mom manage and cook while the two boys work the counter and stock the pastry cases. They're recent immigrants, though I don't know from where. The parents speak with an accent - Thai, maybe Vietnamese - while the boys talk just like all other American teenagers, that is when they decide to talk at all.

Mother and daughter are leaving now. Kind farewells are exchanged. The daugther makes a little joke about the boy behind the counter going off to college. His mother, refilling the coffee urn, chides him gently. He blushes, looking down at the broom he holks in his hand, sweeping it across the floor.

A couple of guys have found their way in. One is reading the sports section, the other checking messages on his phone. Wearing old, worn t-shirts on their day off, they've come for a coffee or two and a maybe a little someting to eat.

Smiles and greetings all around.

John Mayer is singing about waiting on the world to change. But maybe it has.