First, check this out yet. It has nothign to do with the below.

The persistent rumor (fact?) I hear is that the old Cotton’s building is to be torn down. That’s such a shame. I remember so many days when I was a child going there with my father to “smoke and joke.” He’d have his coffee and I’d have my Ale8, poured over a glass of ice. The place always smelled slightly of cigar smoke and cooking hamburgers and tenderloin. As to the quality of conversation, I’m not sure, but when I was ten, it seemed that wisdom was constantly being imparted around various front-room tables. I remember dozens of conversations that began, “You know, what a man might do…” and really, isn’t that the very measure of practicality? I always looked forward to the day long in the future when I’d sit around those same tables with my friends, just talking and laughing, drinking coffee and wiling away the morning or afternoon hours. I never thought that at the time I would really be ready for a coffeehouse of my own, they’d go and tear it down.