Just outside of town lies a building full of memories. It stands, defiantly, against the elements. The townsfolk seem content to forget this place as it fades into the woods surrounding it...but I remember.

Old man Roberts ran the California Lunch Room, as it came to be known. Sure, it sits outside the town limits; but, it was the center of everything for me and most everyone else that lived here in those days. I’m not sure how it has escaped the memories of so many folks. It shaped us. I won’t forget.

Copper mines were our bread and butter in those days. Originally, the California Lunch Room had been a schoolhouse. When the mines finally hit pay dirt, any boys old enough for learning their letters were considered old enough to work the mines. The school shut its doors and sat empty for the first time.

I never cottoned to school much anyhow. The trucks would pick us up in front of the abandoned schoolhouse each morning and take us out to the mines. I’d stare at it from the flat-bed as we drove off in the mornings. It occurs to me now that the place sat neglected each day and waited for our return, not unlike a faithful dog. My thoughts rarely ran so deep as a young man, though.

Roberts bought the place a year later. At first, he put in a soda fountain and sold snacks and candy and the like. Briefly, the place seemed to recapture the youth it had once enjoyed. Eventually, innocence gave way to necessity and desire, and the colorful candy racks gave way to shelves of jeans, work-gloves, and caps to keep a body’s ears from the cold. One day we returned from the mines to find a statue of an Indian holding a cigar box next to a cooler full of beers. The soda fountain had run dry and no self-respecting lady ever entered the place again.

There was a woman, though. We used to joke that she came with the beer. I was sixteen, and it was around that time that Mama forbade me to ever go back into that place. Of course, I became a daily visitor, just so as I could get a look at this woman that came with the beer. I’d never seen or heard of anyone like her and, I suspect, neither had anyone else up until that point. I also suspect they broke the mold after she come out, as well they should have.

I never dallied with her, mind you. I simply sat in the corner and watched her interactions with the older boys. Looking back, it's ironic that I learned more in that building under the name of California Lunch Room than I ever did when it was a school house. You take your lessons where you might. Sort it all out when you’re old and gray.