April 20, 2025

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

As is my wont, a habit from newspaper days, I am up early, 4-5 a.m., and then head for a favorite old-style coffee shop. The day cannot begin without the java and a print newspaper. The streets are then less traveled in my built-up area, and as in the Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken,” that “has made all the difference.”

Before the sun rises, I pass refuse collectors in reflective gear, hopping off rigs and bouncing on pavement to trash cans, flipping lids, swinging their collection into the hopper, which then compacts civilization’s waste. All of that is choreography, and my hat’s off to these fellows who do the dance. I blink my brights in recognition. Satisfying routine.

The few vehicles out drop their own high beams as they approach, and I do the same in yet more choreography. It says “Good Morning” in its own way. Some double-blink, signaling a gendarme is sitting down the road in idling SUV waiting for a speeder to pass. Yet few seem to rush, even commuters, in this early quieter time, before the day speeds up, and we follow in pied-piper fashion.

I usually see runners on the roads, too, seeking fitness, preparing for races and marathons, including my son Arthur, now in his 39th year of training. More choreography.

The coffee shop offers its own rhythm as early risers sit at counter and are served by a fellow who also runs the grill. Eggs and bacon on the flat-top, pancake batter being mixed, Bunn coffee maker reset, hands wiped on towel as the owner moves to task in a score of his own, written over decades.

This is the morning symphony, and for me it’s worth the early rise.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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