June 1968 – I walk down East 6th Avenue, Vancouver, towards Commercial Drive.
This is my first trip off of Vancouver Island. My mother had brought me over to Vancouver for the weekend to visit the Pacific National Exhibition and see a piece of the big city.
Picture at right – Dave Reimer at the 2005 version of Cafe Roma.
On this sunny Saturday afternoon, my cousin, Dennis and I walk down the wide sidewalks past Italian deli’s, corner grocers and bustling cafes.
The street has a life of its own. From a child’s perspective, everything seems brighter, louder, busier and decidedly more fragrant.
The aroma of strong coffee, cured ham and fresh fruit drifts over the concrete beneath my feet. I stop for a moment in front of a busy cafe called Cafe Roma. It seems to be packed with men, young, old, mostly old men entangled in a May pole of loud conversation.
A young couple catches my eye. They seem disconnected from this humming umbilical of community.
She is wearing a canary yellow sun-dress and he a wool suit. The suit seems softened by a few years worth of wear and somewhat sticky considering that it is a hotter than usual summer. Between his sips of strong looking coffee from an impossibly small cup and her sipping from something that looks like a milkshake they talk in a musical banter – words only they seem to understand.
My cousin grabs my shoulder and pulls me along. I see the couple nodding and laughing. The ladies hair moves up and down held in place by a daisy-yellow hair broach. Now we are walking again and he pulls me into a green grocers hardly a door away from the Cafe. I have 90 cents in my pocket and in 1968 a lot of money. I buy a chocolate bar, a butter-finger as I recall, some pixie-sticks, fizzy candy in a paper tube and an RC Cola.
We leave the store and turn left towards the Cafe again.
The Cafe is buzzing louder as we stride towards my Cousins avenue. The table where the young couple sat is now empty save for a cup and a glass. I spot them exiting onto the boulevard, hand in hand, her dress burning a permanent image into my mind, the itchy smell of his suit offering contrast. They vanish into a pulsating hive of urban humanity – a Saturday morning blend of shoppers, smokers, the odd smattering of fashionably clad hipsters and one wide-eyed child – me.
I look in the window – flash forward to March 2005. I stand outside of Cafe Roma on Commercial Drive and time has stood still just for me. My reflection in the window looks alternately young and slightly older.
Clouds pass by offering a broad selection of flattering light. CoffeeCrew member Dave watches me for a moment before holding the door.
“Colin, let’s get some coffee…”
The smells and sounds of the the Cafe and the street envelope me like an old gloved hand. For a moment I hold in my hand the paper tubes of fizzy candy and a half-eaten chocolate bar. Dave asks again, “What are you going to have, dude?”
I order my usual when I am in a cafe for the first time – double espresso and a snack. In this case, they have very tasty looking apple turnovers. I get one.
The intensity of the Italian coffee and the tangy sweetness of the pastry are the perfect match. As I sip the beverage and feel the caffeine perking within me, I can almost hear the whispered conversations of the young lovers from so long ago at a nearby table. Where are they now? Have the years been kind? Most likely, their grandchildren are half-grown up, much as I was in 1968. I think about my marriage, of ten years, and how in places like these, time just stands still.
In the final moments before we leave for our next stop on the drive, the owner pops by to gather up our spent cups. I tell him the coffee is fabulous. His expression is priceless – a combination of ‘of course it is son and doesn’t the sun always rise in the East?’ As we step onto the still vibrant sidewalk of Commercial Drive, two ten year old boys approach on skate boards. One sails past me like a low flying seagull.
The other swishes to a stop and is immediately hypnotized by the activity in the cafe, the noise, the smells, the starling chatter of the old men.
The cycle continues.