03/27/2024
During the fours years our little Haydens Alley Coffee Cafe was open, our customers were really one big family. There were few in this family more predictable than Robert Price, III, Tim McCluskey, and Christopher Drummond.
It did not matter where I was in the shop, if I heard the sound of coins hitting the granite counter top with great panache, I knew immediately that Robert Price, III, affectionately known as "Bobby" was waiting for his medium coffee. One dollar bill and seventy-eight cents. Every! Single! Time!
I have fond memories of Bobby and his father eating lunch on Mondays. The three of us would perch on the stools in the window, watching the town go by. But nothing matches the memory of Bobby's vigorous counter panache.
When Bobby was diagnosed with that dreaded C word, when I walked down Lawyer's Row, it was my habit to press my nose up against his office window, dreaming that he would be sitting in view and if he wasn't with a client, I could harass him for a few seconds, knowing our time was limited.
Bobby left us in 2011, and the earth literally shook in Maryland the day he was buried. Rest on, world-class sailor ...
Starting at Liberty Street, for two years Tim McCluskey took the same path, across the same courthouse lawn, with the same stride, holding his refillable coffee cup at 8:25 each weekday morning. He pleasantly smiled, poured his own coffee at the dollar-filling station, and walked the same path back to start his day.
As my mornings wore on ...
Every single weekday, when the door opened at 11:55 a.m., my heart would jump as I wondered, "Did you bake the chocolate chip cookies yet???"
Chris Drummond walked through the door, straight to the same sandwich cooler, picked out the the same house sandwich (similar to a cold triple-decked ham Reuben), the same bag of potato chips, I poured the same unsweetened iced tea, and served him the same freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie.
The only thing not predictable about Chris would be his answer to the daily trivia. The predictable part is that he never missed accurately answering a historical question.
I lovingly referred to Chris as "Our Walking Electricity Payment" to my business partner because we truly valued Chris's predictable patronage.
One time there was some sort of political gathering being held at the coffee shop one night, and I believe former Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler spoke. I saw Chris sneak out the door a little early, and he told me later there were just too many Democrats in the room for him to breathe properly. Ahahahaha.
Chris practiced law a few doors up from Bobby. It was a common sight to see Chris perched, feet propped on his desk, through the corner window. Just as predictable as his lunchtime routine at the coffee shop.
Chris passed suddenly a few weeks ago while doing what he loved: bicycling (Obituary in comments.) Now sadly, Lawyer's Row is missing both Robert Price, III and Christopher Drummond.
While they may not be there for us to see through the windows anymore, their spirits and legacy live on in the lives of many, including the collective memory of our little coffee shop across from the oldest continuously-running courthouses in the State of Maryland (1792.)
I took this picture of the Predictable Path earlier this year, not knowing there would be one less foot soldier traveling its path.
