The Coach

(Note – Ting and Zoe got out here safe and sound on Oct. 12th. It's a joy to have them back with me and to be together as a family. The story below is from the proceeding weekend… Just a disclaimer so you don't think I'm ignoring my wife and child by going out on the town on my own ;-)

Reno is a funny mix of artists, California ex-pats, and old west culture. To satisfy this weird conglomeration of people there are probably a dozen independent coffee shops and cafes scattered around town. Deux Gros Nez (pronounced "Due Grow Nay" in bad American French) is probably the oldest and most eclectic of these businesses. The fact that the owner is a huge cycling nut and coordinates one of the largest road races in the western states – Tour De Nez – means that I had to go and check out the joint.

It was a Saturday night when I grabbed my copy of Desert Solitaire and headed to Deux Gro Nez. I'm not much for posing in smoky cafes trying to look pseudo-intellectual but I was interested in this restaurant (and besides I didn't have much else to do). The place had only six or seven tables thus I decided to make myself at home at the coffee bar. The dimly lit walls of the cafe are lined with very cool cycling memorabilia from the last twenty years. Hanging from the ceiling are leader jerseys from historic stage races from all over America. Names like the Red Zinger, Tour DuPont, and Coors Classic harken back to the time before Lance Armstrong when America saw the emergence of a young phenom from Reno named Greg LeMond. But enough with the cycling stuff; I ordered a cup of coffee and a slice of apple pie.

It's tough to go to a restaurant and seriously read a book. I opened up my Edward Abbey and pretended to read but really I was listening to the music, checking out the clientele, drooling over the cycling decor, and listening to the interplay of the staff as they whipped together sandwiches and cappuccinos. Eventually I struck up a conversation with another guy at the bar. He was an older man, probably in his mid sixties wearing a green polo shirt with a United States Marine Corps logo stitched over the pocket. He had a flat top Marine haircut and everyone who came in and out of Duex Gro Nez seemed to know the man as "Coach". He seemed a little out of place in the funky cafe.

As we talked I learned that he was the retired coach of the Reno High School track and swimming programs. His eyes lit up when I asked him about his students going on to UNR's nationally ranked swim team. This launched into a long discourse about the inequities of different college sports. From there we moved on to debating the public vs. private school issue and the Coach's concern that parents just didn't put the time into their kids that they once did. We probably spent two hours talking about various subjects. I learned that the Coach had grown up in Reno. He told me about the Hells Angels motorcycle gang invading from San Francisco in the late 1940’s. We discussed water rights, illegal gambling, prostitution, and the other calamities that Reno had weathered through the years.

By the time we had finished it was 10pm. The Coach had downed a couple glasses of port wine and my own head was buzzing from a mix of coffee and Yerba Mate. He got up to pay his bill and asked me about my book. I tried to explain that Edward Abbey was a nature lover who wrote about the desert back in the 1960’s. It would have been tough to describe a man who writing ignited the environmental movement to an ex-Marine like the Coach. As I paid my bill I asked the Coach about his book. He smiled sheepishly and said the Nora Roberts was not one of his regular reads. We both headed out into the night, thankful for the conversation; the Coach, glad to have someone to talk to, and myself, feeling slightly more at home in my new town...