‘Life is Laughter, Love & Coffee’: Fountain
I TAKE MY MORNING COFFEE with the guys at “the roundtable,” come rain or shine, snow or sleet. We sip, even through storms, on the veranda, or else inside the friendly confines of our south suburban café, chewing the fat over a cup of Joe that makes time pass much too fast. I treasure our laughter and conversation, those moments shared between men, between friends — so aware that this too will eventually fade like the seasons.
Like the time some Jehovah’s Witnesses walked in and began witnessing to “Coach” — a soft-spoken, whimsical old guy — about his “purpose” in life. “Why are you here?” they asked.
Raising his cup, Coach answered matter of factly, “I’m just here for the coffee.” We all laughed.
There was the time one of the guys came in fresh from having a colonic irrigation. He confessed unashamedly that the technician who had administered the procedure had flushed a few chickens from his colon.
There were the times when Patrick, a slender, coffee-brown man, sometimes pulled up in his red sedan, James Brown blaring. Times when Patrick’s infectious laugh roared as he played the dozens, or the time we tailgated at a Sox game and Patrick brought the chicken and rib-tips that made the experience that much sweeter.
Just the other day, someone at the coffee shop asked about Patrick, saying they hadn’t seen him in a while.
A while. My friends and I have come to understand, that is all that any of us gets in this thing called life — only a while. That years can pass before someone suddenly realizes you’re gone, and that unless a man’s friends or family remember him, his life is soon vanished like a vapor. So we have resolved to take time to laugh, to savor the seasons.
There are the times when we laugh so hard it makes us cry. There are also times when the laughter dissipates, when the hush caused by the discussion of weightier things rises like a lump in the throat. Like when we talk about our numbers: our blood pressure, blood sugar and PSA levels; about our last colonoscopy and prostate exams; about life; about the inevitability of death and, because of it, the need to squeeze from life every drop of laughter, love and bliss.
As men — mostly middle-aged or else approaching our twilight years — we stare increasingly at our own mortality, realizing that while diet, exercise and routine checkups have their place, all men will eventually succumb to something. That we shall all die.
And yet whether our fate is to live forty or thirty or even just one more year, we are in agreement on this: That for whatever time we have, we intend to live. For some, that means taking trips to Hawaii, or a drive to visit the grandchildren. For some, it is the taking in of a game at the old ballpark, or a night out at a favorite restaurant, sipping a drink at an outdoor café — people watching, holding hands with your love. For most of us, it is also about endeavoring to live peaceably with all men, forgiving ourselves and drinking each moment as best we can, as if it were our last.
That seems to have become almost a cliché in a world where it can sometimes seem that we have all the time in the world until that moment we face the sudden, unexpected and sobering news that our days are numbered. Except my friends and I understand that they always were.
I suspect our friend Patrick also understood this long before he died a couple summers ago. So he — we — made time for laughter, love and memories. In my estimation, that’s all we have and it’s the best that any of us leaves behind. And at the end of the day, it’s not about how you die but how you live.
Email: Author@johnwfountain.com
Website: http://www.johnwfountain.com
Son of the Times: Life, Laughter, Love & Coffee captures a mix of the best of Fountain’s columns and also some of his other work from a nearly 25-year career as a journalist. He is a masterful storyteller. And his words will make you laugh, cry, think and feel — no matter what your flavor or politics — because his stories, more than anything else, are simply human.
“Fountain writes with intelligence, compassion and eloquence about stuff that nobody in Chicago writes about but should… John’s general approach as a columnist is to mine the personal to find the universal, a rather dangerous form of journalism that works only if done very well. He does so beautifully well.”
— Tom McNamee, editorial page editor of the Chicago Sun-Times
“His writing is crisp and compelling as he tackles issues head-on, giving his readers a look into his thoughts and feelings.”
— Chicago Journalists Association judges panel
John W. Fountain remembers, and will not let us forget. Chicago born and raised, he has been steeped in the city’s history — a street rep of violence and open-air murder known in gossip, story, song and Frank Sinatra comedy…
Encompassing history and breaking news; column writing, rap lyrics and blank verse; scalding memory and present tears, John Fountain’s work as a weekly freelance writer for the Chicago Sun-Times opinion pages stands out for its precision, its eloquence, its intelligence, its breadth and variety and emotional pull…
— Reginald Davis, former editor at the Chicago Tribune
