Every Christmas Day in the tiny town of Niwot, Colorado, the Niwot Tavern (and Restaurant) opens its doors all afternoon to all-comers (3 shifts) and serves for free a full Christmas Day dinnrer (this is not a picnic) to all lucky enough to make it inside during one of the three shifts. Those serving the "customers" are the owners who spend their whole (long) day in the kitchen preparing all the food (e.g. prime rib, ham, etc.);  the children who take the orders;  and the teenagers who deliver the different meals and (non-alchoholic) drinks.

Christmas Day, 2016, I was one of the lucky ones to get in. I was by myself. I was 74. No seating was assigned. At right-angles to me sat down a beautiful, young woman. Her name, I was to find out, was Yana (a Russian name). She had spent her early years there, eventually moving to the United States with her family. Almost instantly, we began chatting. She, I found out, was 32. The age difference didn't seem to matter at all. We talked about everything, non-stop. We almost forgot to eat our meals. I had never experienced like this before. Instant rapport. No, something even deeper than that:  it was as though we had known each other eternally, not chronologically, not physically, but spiritually.

Yana now lives in Massachusetts on the ocean. We continue to com-
municate from time to time, mostly by phone or email. I have known this young woman, as bright as she is beautiful, that if you counted up the hours we have chatted, the sum of which equals not even a day.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks