David Moreau was the owner of Grumpy’s Coffee and Ice Cream in Riverside, Illinois, originally just across the street from the train depot, so that many, many train riders would drop in for a quick cup and sweetroll on their way to or from work.  That included Marlis, and I’d often linger in the shop—sometimes after she’d caught the train, sometimes while waiting for her train to arrive.

Some of his friends say that Grumpy’s wasn’t named after David, because he was a kind man.  I disagree.  He certainly wasn’t unkind, and he wasn’t unfriendly, at least after a breaking-in period. But his standard day-to-day demeanor was grumpy.  I admired him for it. I mean, look at the world around us.

I also deeply admired Grumpy’s coffee shop, a warm, aromatic space at the corner of an old Riverside building across the street from the train depot. It was decorated with lots of vintage photos from Broadway shows, radio, and the movies. The sound system, too, always played interesting music—frequently older jazz.  What’s not to like?

So I gradually tried to ingratiate myself by making unnecessary but what I hoped to be wise, witty, and hip comments about films and jazz when I ordered a cuppa joe.  As I recall, this ingratiation process took weeks, but eventually we established a first-name connection, and from then on it was all gravy.

Once established as a regular, you could gradually chip in to the discussions of a wacky cast of regulars.  Grumpy collected and nurtured a broad range of friendly and generally opinonated customers. Some of them drove me nuts, but I soon grew fond of Jim Nash and Johnny Simonetta. Jim was a retired engineer and a voracious reader. He once began a conversation with me by saying “I was re-reading Principia Mathmatica last night, and. . . .” Yes, with ME. What a laugh. He’d patiently explain what needed explaining, which in my case was pretty much everything, and I’m sure I never really understood what he had to say about Alfred North Whitehead; but he amiably allowed the chat to drift over to Bertrand Russell, where I at least had a chance.  An atheist, he attended church regularly (for his wife’s sake) and would go to Tuesday night church discussions, as he put it, to shake everyone up.  He was the absolute antithesis of combative, but look out for inquisitive. He was ever ready to examine any belief from any perspective.  Jim loved music, and in his 70s performed a great rendition of “Luck Be a Lady” for entertainment at a charity ball. Once, a gig for my band Safe Sax fell through at the last minute. Since I owed the musicians a paycheck anyway, we went ahead and performed in Jim’s backyard as a birthday present.

Johnny Simonetta is a guitar-player, composer, and producer who writes movie scores, commercials, and all sorts of practical, interesting things that an actual working musician undertakes.  He’s the son of the wonderful Chicago drummer Mickey Simonetta, so he’s knowledgeable about jazz, but even so would tease me for my old-fashioned ways with my Safe Sax band.

If you wonder why I’m talking about Jim Nash and Johnny Simonetta in a piece about David Moreau, that’s exactly the point.  David could hold his own in a discussion about just about anything, but more importantly, his personality exuded interest in the most diverse range of people and ideas. So, while you could get exercized about a point while chatting at Grumpy’s, you couldn’t get mad. That would break the house rules–although I have to say that sarcasm was allowed, and, if apt, even celebrated.

But the kindness thing was true.  He was very active with the Riverside Catholic church, and helpful in other charitable ways, too. At one point, I gave him a copy of a CD I’d made with a quintet I called Halfway to Dawn.  David digitized it and put it on the coffee-shop computer’s hard drive. Whenever he saw me about to enter the shop, he’d punch a couple of buttons, and by the time I opened the door, my band’s music would be filling the shop as if on an endless loop.  Music to my ears.

David died last week, December 2022. I’m pretty sure that, if he could read the praise I’ve tried to convey about him here, he’d have just two words of comment: “Too late.”  Grumpy.  The best.