I am feeling a little guilty. Life isn’t so bad when you tell everyone you’re going to go help your son move yet to another place, and you end up on the Atlantic beach at dawn sipping some java and watching God wake up the sun over the waves of water. I like Oxford, MS, Houston, Baton Rouge, LA, Ft. Worth, Austin, and San Antonio, but Daytona, FL has to be the best place we’ve had to visit a child in college. Good job, Greg.

I don’t know if it is this way in other small towns, but the ones I am familiar with all have a group of older men and a local meeting place for coffee. When I worked at the bank, it was right in front of my desk. They always had a fresh pot of coffee at the bar across from my desk, and the same men, all retired or with flexible schedules, would spend a good part of their mornings there. In Carlos, (don’t ask where—my best attempt to tell you is it’s a four-way stop between College Station and Huntsville, TX), they meet at the only corner store. My husband can’t wait to get up early enough to meet the guys for coffee, often driving all the way from Houston. It’s tradition. Now, I love my back yard patio with all the birds in the trees or the back porch at the ranch with the cool, damp breeze, but who could ask for more beauty than a cup of coffee on the beach at sunrise?

The last time we were here in Daytona, I noticed that there was a group of men that met every morning at the same bench that looked out onto the water. I can see why. The interesting thing was some had suits on and others just their old shorts, but they were all friends apparently. I wondered how many years it took them before they started their day this way. It wouldn’t take me long to do the same thing—in fact, I’ve picked out my own bench.