The Coffee Obsession social group includes, clockwise from bottom left, Michael McGrath, Jesus Pineda, Dave Kent, Michele Ray, Richard Latimer, George Nickerson and Brandon Nordin. Next to Mr. Nordin is an unidentified member.
Dave Kent co-founded the group in 2000.
When a long-standing member dies, a small memorial plaque with an epitaph is affixed to the crest rail of one of the shop’s wooden chairs.
When a long-standing member dies, a small memorial plaque with an epitaph is affixed to the crest rail of one of the shop’s wooden chairs.
The Coffee Obsession social group includes, clockwise from bottom left, Michael McGrath, Jesus Pineda, Dave Kent, Michele Ray, Richard Latimer, George Nickerson and Brandon Nordin. Next to Mr. Nordin is an unidentified member.
Dave Kent co-founded the group in 2000.
When a long-standing member dies, a small memorial plaque with an epitaph is affixed to the crest rail of one of the shop’s wooden chairs.
When a long-standing member dies, a small memorial plaque with an epitaph is affixed to the crest rail of one of the shop’s wooden chairs.
At 8:37 AM on a recent Saturday, sitting in a upholstered chair at Coffee Obsession, David J. Kent took a sip of his medium black coffee and resumed talking with members of his informal social group, which has been meeting nearly every Saturday at the Palmer Avenue coffee shop for the past 24 years.
“This is our church,” said Jesus J. Pineda, a native of Mexico and a benthic ecologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Mr. Kent balked. “Oh God, don’t say that.”
“It is,” insisted Mr. Pineda, a group member since 2006. “It’s a community.”
Community membership is informal. The only apparent requirement is comfort talking left-wing politics at high volume.
“Sometimes, we are really loud,” Mr. Pineda said.
“Sometimes,” Mr. Kent added, “we are too loud.”
Politics and history are the group’s main topics of conversation. That morning the conversation ranged from Elon Musk to Joshua Chamberlain’s role in the Battle of Gettysburg, to making fun of each other’s pet topics and obsessions, which include Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts and denitrifying septic systems.
“And by the way,” Mr. Kent said. “We almost never talk sports.”
That Saturday morning—the icy Saturday after the winter’s first snowfall—members arrived one by one, pulling up chairs, until a group of eight sat in a circle by the shop’s front windows.
Mr. Pineda said he enjoys the group’s diversity of skills and professional backgrounds.
“So when we need advice about certain things, we can get it,” he said. One former member (since moved to Florida) was a homebuilder. “And I was going to buy a house. And so I took him to see three houses, and he said, ‘Buy this one.’”
Mr. Kent, a retired physics teacher and technology consultant, co-founded the group in 2000. Membership is predominantly, but not exclusively, male.
“We need a few more females,” Mr. Kent said.
Around 8:50 AM, group member Michele H. Ray arrived. When Ms. Ray first moved to Falmouth, she came frequently to Coffee Obsession, known informally as Coffee O. “So I would come into the coffee shop, and there was this large ruckus group.”
One day, group member George R. Nickerson came over to Ms. Ray’s table and asked if she wanted to join them.
“I came over and said hello and sat down,” Ms. Ray said. “I was new in town—so here was a wonderful group to start to associate with.”
That was two-and-a-half years ago, and her affection for the noisy group has only grown.
“I love these people,” she said. “They’re my heart in Falmouth.”
When a long-standing member dies, a small memorial plaque with an epitaph is affixed to the back of one of the shop’s wooden chairs.
The epitaph for Frank Messmann (born 1938, died 2021) reads, “Solved the world’s problems at Coffee O for 20+ years.”
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