In a dingy cafe on Fourth street, the wino row of Souix City, Iowa; I sat waiting for the meal I had ordered. It wasn't a place I would normally eat but I was pressed for time and didn't want to drive the mile or so to another one. The place was filled with the run of the mill down and outs, looking for a place to stay warm for even a little while and scrounging for the nickel that bought them a hot cup of coffee. Tattered coats and odd size shoes told of their status in life and I would suppose there was a story with each of them. My eyes scanned the room, going from one face to another, until they came to a stop on a nondescript old man, sitting alone, staring at his coffee. At first, he looked like all the others except for the intense blue eyes that were so focused on his cup. Unshaven, there was nothing to indicate he had ever been anything but what he appeared to be, for his entire life. I tried to imagine him as a younger man, married, perhaps with children, but it was hard to see him as anything but hungry, cold and alone. He seemed lost in thought, or perhaps a memory, for as he continued to stare, the lines etched in his face began to soften, letting the years slip from him. As I watched the unkempt hair and dirty scarf, blurred into the background. His face seemed to glow as though some light from a distant past shone on him, taking time and the life he lived away, leaving only the happiness of a moment he carried with him, revisited for the joy of it's beauty. A smile came across his face and I was oblivious to everything but his transformation for I was as lost in him as he was in his revelry. Time was suspended having no meaning as we sat there, and it was only when the clatter of dishes and conversation came back to me that I noticed he had slid back into the ragged old man he was.