Long ago down on Main Street was a little place called Abe’s Cafe owned by a guy named Fred.
That was when our little town was little and kids could not get away with anything for
long because some wag-tongue’s would call your Mom or Dad. You were toast before you even got home.
There was a lot of history there too and at the Round Table you could be a part of it.
If you went down there enough the long horizon of histories would become apparent!
You might be sitting with some down on his luck kid looking for a job, the editor emeritus
and founder of the local newspaper, the owner of the local hardware store with his son and grandson.
The local cobbler and the barber and most of the construction contractors.
Also a collection of real estate people and other hangers on. A foreign exchange student from Ethiopia and his school teacher
host sitting next to a guy who was a resistance fighter in WW II Europe. In this mix it was not
unusual to see the congressman or someone running for congress or other office stopping by to be human.
Sooner or later it seemed the whole world came by the Round Table and the mix was always changing.
A lot of business was done. A lot of words exchanged. Love, hate, respect or even a little disrespect was doled out.
Mostly it was our melting pot. Almost everyone sat at that table.
Color, race, origin didn’t matter. ranchers, farmers, rodeo cowboys, hippies, old solders
and new recruits, students, foreign and native born. No one was barred and it truly was
a place where you could be who you are and others who might be your exact opposite
would listen and defend your right to say what you believed.
It was a safe place before the world thought we needed them.
Everyone mostly agreed on one thing! You have a right to your opinion and to express it,
but you have to listen to mine too! You could not be a fake at the Round Table.
This is a photo of my Mother and Father that was in the local newspaper.
Photo was taken by the earlier mentioned editor.
The paper actually did a story about the Round Table.
I took all this for granted at the time and we miss it.
We have seen other similar tables in other places
but none had the diversity of the Round Table at Abe’s.
It had it’s time and was a one of a kind!
If there were more of them people would see that the dream
of the great melting pot is real and it will stir it’s self, it always has.
It was an amazing place to have morning coffee, breakfast, or lunch
The show ran 7 days a week for decades.
No ticket required!






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