Not Too Shabby

I walked down a tiered seating area looking for the proper spot to sit outside. This place is incredibly eclectic despite being situated directly next to a building filled with predicability. There are Christmas lights strung throughout its trees paired with an uneven assortment of faded painted patio tables, a bathtub in the back pouring a fountain over a sculpted baby angel, and cuckoo clocks on the walls. I knew there had to be someone here who would stand out tonight, and there is. A shabby elderly man (definitely shabby, not sloppy) is sitting surrounded by a lake of young age. I learned to be careful trying to distinguish older generations while visiting friends in San Francisco after a man, whom I was positive was homeless, was invited in and asked them if he could light up his doobie. It was already lit, and it turns out he was the editor of a major magazine.

This shabby elderly man across the way before me now is wearing shorts, a t-shirt that has lost much of its coloration, and a nice white long sleeved button up shirt over the other rolled up his forearms along with: collected coarse grey hair pulled back in a pony tail, and an experienced beard. He has found a chair that not only allows him to scan the entire flock, but also a chair that sways and rocks. He does this wearing a final accessory in the form of a relentless smirk. Depending on which side of his face he determines his "good side", one would either perceive this scanning smirk as creepy, or an arrogant air of wisdom. You might think he is staring at you, but in all actuality he is reliving the many versions of himself, and that melancholic archive keeps him smiling now. Once more he is delighting in his childhood watering hole, a hike through the Appalachian Mountains, the jungles next to his buddies from the war, the many successes of failed relationships, protests, movements, lost jobs, an empty wallet, his first born, and the persistence of a seemingly senseless business that now affords him the last laugh at everyone here while exhaling a puff of smoke that evaporates as quickly as his own years have, and thinking to himself, "All you kids have no clue what real hardship is." He is right.

To this bizarre bean: you know who you are.