I’m going to start cataloging my notes for Meetings With Remarkable Men here. I’m going to start by exploring some of my earliest experiences with diners.

It all really started in high school, at my church youth group. After the evening’s events we would often go to Shari’s to further socialize. There were large groups of us. We were loud and annoying and didn’t tip, and if any of the servers who had the misfortune of serving us are reading this, I am very, very sorry. As large groups often are, it was loud and often chaotic. People forgot about food, conversations were fragmented and often overlapped with other conversations, and I often found myself bouncing from one to the other–probably listening. In groups, I listen. It’s almost more enjoyable.

It was a stark contrast to the quiet of the youth group–which ended on an introspective note, and the socialization that took place after was always subdued while still in the building. This was people in their element, being served, talking, laughing, enjoying themselves, pretending the rest of the universe didn’t exist–and in many ways pretending the rest of the night never happened. I didn’t develop people-watching tendencies until much later, but I started to think of the late-night diner as a neutral zone. No authority figures–waitresses certainly didn’t count to this group. For a high school student, there are few occasions when there is no chance of interacting with someone in authority, be it a parent, a teacher, a youth pastor, or otherwise. The other options are movie theaters, or a parent being out of town for the weekend–one of which was generally not an ideal time for socializing, the other of which was hardly reliable, especially for a kid like myself, who seldom simply went somewhere just to hang out.

I enjoyed this little routine, of bumming a ride out and a ride back, drinking a milkshake, talking, laughing, being loud and obnoxious and proud of it. I was free from social responsibility and free to be a part of the group. This declined as some of the older, more charismatic kids graduated and moved on, and I started slipping away from my religion and, now that I could drive, doing more independent things. But it was always a positive place in my mind.