Many of my friends have asked me what is it with these posts about coffee shops, how did this get started, why is this important to me. Well many years ago we lived in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati Ohio and my youngest daughter Emily had aspirations of becoming an artist. She was taking art classes in High School but wanted more so we enrolled her in Saturday classes are the Art Academy of Cincinnati which was near Mt. Adams. She was not old enough to drive so every Saturday I would drive her to class, hangout down town, photograph and then after class we would go to a coffee shop. Most often it was the College Hill Coffee Shop in College Hill and there we would drink coffee eat lemon poppy seed bread and talk. This was before cell phones and WiFi. We would just talk! Talk about School, her art class, my work and travel, photography and all the little things that are on a young girls mind. It was a wonderful time.
So today maybe I am trying to recapture some of those feelings of companionship and friendship between a dad and his youngest daughter. Emily does not live near me now so our coffee shop visits together are few and far between but every time I visit a shop today and have a fresh brew and maybe some lemon poppy seed bread I think of Emily and our time together.
Emily did go on to Bowling Green State University and received a bachelor’s degree in computer art and a minor in ceramics and is a graphic designer for a large company in North Carolina.