Last Sunday I had a 1960s flashback. And no, it wasn’t an LSD one, either. Instead, it was about a universal feature of those heady days, now all but vanished — the coffeehouse.

In case you didn’t know, the ’60s coffeehouse is not to be confused with a coffee shop of today. Coffee shops are commercial venues, places that are there to make money, and as such they don’t just sell your typical coffee. They’ll have something like 15 different kinds of coffee, with 18 different kinds of preparations, along with exotic baked goods only the Sultan of Brunei can afford.

“A double-decaf cafe au lait with almond milk and a shot of mint caramel?” says the almost completely inked barista,with a smile. “Comin’ right up.”

While you wait for him to do his magic, you pick out something to nosh that looks like a doughnut.

When your coffee’s ready he rings up your purchase.

“Soooo…d-d cafe au lait, with almond milk and mint caramel, and a Highland haggis cruller,” he chirps. “Do you qualify for our senior discount?”

You tell him you do.

“Right-o,” he says. “That’ll be twenty-five seventy five.”

What a deal! With a modest tip, you’ll still end up with enough in your wallet to put a gallon or two in your gas tank.

An overall tres tony experience — and the polar opposite of the ’60s coffee house.

While the old coffeehouses had coffee, it was to today’s gourmet coffee what gas station chile con carne is to haute cuisine. In fact, I think a lot of those places served instant — Taster’s Choice being a high end brand. But it didn’t matter, because we weren’t there for a gustatory experience. Instead, we were there for an enlightened one — or at least what we thought was one.

Many, if not most, of the coffeehouses of yore were subsidized by some organization or other — a church or a college or maybe a service organization — and no one expected they were going to break even, much less make a profit. Their purpose wasn’t mercantile, but humane — to give young people a place to hang out that didn’t have alcohol, drugs or thugs. And for the most part, though they were all pretty short-lived, I think they succeeded admirably.

The one I remember most fondly was in Potsdam, during my days at Old Siwash. I don’t know who paid for the rent and the rest, but I think it was SUNY Potsdam. It was downtown, on the second floor of a building that looked like it’d been built during Grant’s first term and hadn’t had any upkeep since. It was called The Pendulum because there was another coffeehouse in town called The Pit, which I think was subsidized by Clarkson University.

The Pendulum was a great place to hang out. It was warm in the winter, had a devoted clientele, and you could always either find someone to chat with, or you could chill in a corner, alone.. As for the coffee itself? The less said, the better.

Ironically, the Pendulum had a Saranac Lake connection.

–

Safe haven

–

One of the moving forces, if not the moving force, behind the Pendulum’s creation was a SUNY coed named Heidi Schneckenburger. Heidi was a peach. She was fun, smart, loyal, and a great all-around pal. She was also one helluva Can-Do mover and shaker. If she made her mind up to get something done, it’d get done. And such was the case with the Pendulum.

It was pretty much just a bare room when she declared it the North Country’s future Hungry I, and it needed all sorts of construction to make it useable. It just so happened, Heidi’s beau (later her husband) was Steve Hunt, one of my classmates from the SLHS class of ’64. Steve was as laconic and low key as Heidi was hyped-up and hard-charging. But he also had engineering and building skills aplenty, so under his hand, the bare room became a homey hangout.

I didn’t go there a lot, but when I did, it was with a pal or two, to shoot the breeze and fill the already-smoke-filled air with MORE smoke. Oh yeah, that was another staple of the coffeehouses — everyone had to be chain smoking cigarettes. That is, everyone down-to-earth: The pretentious types (generally English Lit. majors who wore ascots and tried to sound like actors in British film noir flicks) puffed away profoundly and condescendingly on pipes.

Being the existential lone wolf I was, I didn’t like to go to the Pendulum when there were a lot of people, so I missed most of their activities, which for the most part were musical open mics. Sometimes, however, there was poetry and I still remember one reading, because it was a friend of mine’s.

His name was Ray “Cheap Thrills” Dills. His nickname was ironic, since he was one of the least impulsive but most sensible guys I knew. We were in the same class at Paul Smith’s, and after he graduated, with the draft breathing down his neck and not wanting to stay in school, he enlisted in the Navy. His girlfriend went to Potsdam and he came there to say goodbye before he was sworn in. When he got there, he asked if he could stay with me, since back in the so-called “Good Old Days,” men weren’t allowed to stay in women’s dorms. Of course I said yes.

After he unloaded his stuff, he headed over to his gf’s dorm. A short time later he came back, looking like he’d just been through a 9.5 earthquake, which in a manner of speaking, he had: His girlfriend had broken up with him.

In all fairness, it was the smart and humane thing for her to do. He’d be gone four years, they’d almost never see each other, and the odds were she’d end up with some other guy anyway. Being the guy he was, he understood the situation perfectly and didn’t resent her decision. Still, he was hurting, as only 20-year-old guys going in the Navy, with a now-suddenly-declared ex-girlfriend, can hurt.

I gave him the usual line of conciliatory blather — tomorrow’s another day, it’s always darkest before the dawn, there’s plenty more fish in the sea — the typical stuff one awkward kid tells another when he doesn’t know what else to say.

Ray nodded, more I’m sure out of politeness than the wisdom of my words.

“And ya wanna know the worst part?” he said.

“Sure,” I said, not wanting to know at all.

“Just as I was leaving, she said the last thing any guy wants to hear.”

“What was that?” I asked.

“She said, ‘No matter what, I’ll always love you like a brother.'”

I was proud I didn’t say the first thing that came to mind, which was, of course, “incest is best.”

We both sat around for a while, and then I remembered something: The Pendulum was holding an open mic that night. I didn’t want to just hang in the room and figured he didn’t either, so I asked him if he wanted to go. He said yes, and we left.

–

The right word at the right time

–

The place was full — of people, guitars, and smoke — and we sat at the only unoccupied table, there in the back, next to the crapper. I got us coffees and just after I handed him his, he pulled some sheets of paper from his jacket pocket and started scribbling furiously. I had no idea what he was writing, but figuring it wasn’t a suicide note, I left him to it and watched the performers instead.

They were the usual array: A few fairly talented, a couple very talented, and rest, uh … um … sincere. The kid at the mic was doing a desperate uber-adenoidal Dylan imitation, banging on his git-fiddle and making a hash of “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Suddenly, Ray got up, his papers in hand, and walked over to the MC. They chatted a bit, then the MC nodded and Ray smiled and came back to the table.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I wrote a poem here,” he said, pointing at this papers, “and I asked if I could read it.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said I could go on right after this guy.”

Finally, after what seemed like six hours, Dylan du manque finished, and Ray took his place by the mic.

I still remember the name of the poem — “With Unbroken Heart and Unbowed Head.” But I remember nothing else, except it was as horrible as it was heartfelt. When he finished, there was a nice smattering of applause, and he came back to the table, big grin on his mug.

“So,” he said, “what’d ya think?”

I was on the horns of a dilemma. The poem was the typical overdone and overwritten dreck we all wrote when we ventured into verse. But the last thing I wanted to do was hurt his feelings. I also couldn’t delay my reply or he’d know I wasn’t being up-front.

Desperately, I ran through all the adjectives I could think of, nodding my head and looking into the middle distance, as if in serious contemplation.

Finally, I thought I had it.

“Ray,” I said, looking him in the eye, my gaze unwavering, “that was authentic.”

“Ya think so?” he said.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I know so!”

I held out my hand we shook, the deal sealed, with Ray grinning and nodding to himself.

I was only 20 years old and on the spot, but I’d risen to the occasion: I’d had two choices. One was to be honest, and hurt his feelings. The other was to lie, and make him feel good about himself. Obviously, I lied.

And ya wanna know something? Any time over the 50-plus years since then that I was in the same situation, I also lied — without a moment’s hesitation or a twinge of remorse.