Meet some old ifriends..for the first time

I've been posting about Last Chance Democracy Cafe for some time but I haven't introduced you to "the regulars".....LoLo posted a comment that it would be helpful if we posted an introduction to the main characters so you could sort of keep up with what's going on. You can read the details here but heres a short description.

First the proprietor: Steve

Steve is, well — he’s me, the proprietor of the café and the unofficial scribe for the Three Wise Men.
But that wasn’t always so. There was life before The Last Chance Democracy Café: A life without The Three Wise Men, the large round table, Zach, Republican darts, Liberal Burgers and the Bushspeak Machine. I used to be a lawyer. Actually, I still am, but back then I wasn’t a lawyer simply because I had a piece of paper saying I was one. Back then, I actually played one in a courtroom.

And about those Three Wise men.

The Three Wise Men is my term, by the way. Hey, I run a cafe. You were expecting Steinbeck? Anyway, the whole thing with the wise men started by accident. Late one Wednesday, Tom, a retired economics professor, dropped in for a drink. A few minutes later, Winston, who had also just retired after 30 years as a district court judge, sat down at the bar. Then came Horace. Horace, who dropped out of school at age 14, worked most of his life as a trucker, somehow finding the time along the way, in dingy motel rooms and dirty truck stops, to read more history, philosophy and economics than any ten college graduates combined. He finally “hung up my clutch,” as he puts it, the previous June.
Helped along by a few nightcaps, the three strangers struck up a conversation. And befitting The Last Chance Democracy Café, mostly they talked about the declining state of democracy in America. From that night on, it became a regular Wednesday evening affair.

The newcomer (and often inadvertent "straightman") is Zach, who

He started out as just one of the hand full of college students who drop in — a new bunch every Wednesday evening — to experience our colorfulness and gawk at the Three Wise Men. The kids think it’s funny — three old farts, half-crocked, pontificating on the decline of American democracy. They hang around watching the “entertainment” for an hour or two, eat a burger and slam down a beer. Then they’re off, in search of more glandular forms of diversion. But Zach was different. Zach stayed.

There are others...including Donald who plays a leading role in this most current episode.

Ned, a Minister of the United Church of Christ who generally stops in only for lunch...and very deep conversations.

Molly is an interesting person...she's also part owner of the cafe...as are all the employees ut there is something....well just "something" about Molly as Steve describes it:

Molly, one of the café’s servers (and part owners), works the lounge on Wednesday evenings when the wise men hold their weekly gathering at the large round table. With a tongue that’s more than sharp enough to hold her own against Horace, Tom and Winston, she’s a regular source of wisecracks

Well, there they are...after reading just a few episodes of Last Chance Democracy Cafe, you begin to think of these folks as your neighbors and, in my case, almost my best friends. They remind me so much of my college days where debates with students and professors over a wine cooler was better than almost any other experience on the campus. Truth and educated opinion were valued in college the same way they are today in the Cafe.

See you every other Thursday in the cafe...