Postcards from East Aurora, NY

Taste Coffee, East Aurora, NY
(photo copyright by Dory Adams)

East Aurora, New York was an early destination on our September vacation, where we treated ourselves to a stay at the historic Roycroft Inn as we worked our way toward the Thousand Islands area and Canada. The Main Street shopping district in the village is filled with thriving independent stores and businesses, including a five-and-dime store and a movie theater with neon marquee. It’s the kind of place you notice if you are of a certain age and can remember when the hub of activity used to be in the town – and not at the big box stores or the strip malls outside of town. This is the kind of place you might’ve looked forward to visiting with your parents on a Friday evening or Saturday morning shopping trips. And where, if you were really good and didn’t misbehave, you might be allowed to buy a special treat. These days, the survival of such a downtown business district is the treat. And the one in East Aurora still exists because it was one of the first communities to successfully block Walmart from the area.

Taste Coffee, East Aurora, NY
(photo copyright by Dory Adams)

Taste Coffee’s steaming cup sign appealed to the part of me who forever remains a six-year-old child. It’s an image that reminds me of the episode of Leave It To Beaver where the fire company had to rescue the Beav after he fell into a steaming cup that was part of a billboard advertisement for soup after his pal Whitey dared him to climb up to see if it was filled with real soup. An image is usually all it takes to set a story in motion for me. Or, an overheard snippet of conversation – which is inevitable if you hang around a coffee shop long enough. I was ready to settle in at a table, open up my laptop computer, fuel myself with coffee and see what story unfolded. But we had a long drive ahead of us and we were only there for coffee-to-go as we left town for the long drive to the Thousand Islands area.

Taste Coffee, East Aurora, NY
(Photo copyright by Dory Adams)

I usually prefer to write in a more private space in order to feel secure for that stepping-off from reality that occurs as part of the writing process into the places where a story might take me, but I’m sometimes amazed at how well the writing goes amid the buzz of a busy coffee shop. How about you? Where do you write best?