An Old Memory

The paper I picked out today presents some old reminiscences I wrote many years ago on the occasion of Brian and Sue's retirement from operating the No Exit Cafe in Rogers Park, Illinois.

It was a comfortable place to hear jazz of a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, or some good local folk singers on many nights, or to just sit and read, drinking coffee or orzata. In general it was a sort of Hippie operation that hadn't lost its Beatnik edge.

The occasion was a party to celebrate Brian and Sue's retirement after many years of keeping the place real and everyone was present that day. So here goes:

I think first of the Sartrean play of that name in which man confronts the blank walls of his existence with the emptiness of his potentiality. But then I think about today; one of those moments when you know God smiles. You know there are many when He cries. But here is one when He says, "Yes, yes, man can do some things well."

When I think back to the No Exit, I remember a particular incident from many months ago. Brian and Sue, circled by beautiful children, stood in the back of the room embraced in peace, lost in the moment. Their hands were in each others back pockets, a gesture perhaps invented in the Sixties, but surely made from eternity.

Three-fourths of the world is water, you know — icy, cold and pure. God's cynosure that stays the flood with rainbow hand.