Jazz Barista

   It was yet another cold Sunday, I crept into the Northeast Minneapolis coffee house to warm up. My hands can't stand the cold anymore. I wrapped them around a nice Mocha, Dave Brubeck's Blue Rondo á la Turk was playing on a boom box. I got to talking to the barista about the music. About how it was a breakthrough album—the tune Take Five was actually a pop hit. I tried not to sound like a know-it-all geezer, but the young guy seemed cool with it. Maybe he was a musician. He said always liked Miles' Kind of Blue record, an album recorded only a few weeks before Brubeck's Time Out. Our conversation petered out; I spent some time reading the messages posted on the shop's fridge that was only a few feet in front of me.

   Some new customers came in and the mood was broken. The barista went back to work, and I left.