Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

Years ago, I frequented a squalid cafe on the Stanford Campus called the Coffee House. At the time, I considered the place rank; the dark wood tables had a waxy patina from generations of graduate student sweat. I went there every night though, not because I loved it, but because I didn't have a car to go anywhere else. It was dark, too dark to study, but that didn't seem to stop anyone. It did have its virtues, and I recognized some of them at the time. The live music was both free and good; the Indigo Girls played there before anyone knew who they were. I remember having my first coffee there, and the caffeine high drove me to fall in love, at least temporarily, with the woman I was with (I still remember her fondly). One night I spent hours drinking beers with one of my philosophy teachers discussing a paper and thinking: this is what college is all about.

When I returned to Stanford for graduate school about five years later, the CoHo (how I hated that abbreviation) was pretty much unchanged. But my perceptions of the place had changed: it was no longer a rank cesspool, but rather an eidetic realization of the perfect college cafe. As an adult, I realized that the CoHo was a fucking cool place to be. Its dark wood benches now signified permanence and history.

Today I happened to be at Stanford and suggested to a friend that we meet at the CoHo for a drink. Together we drove to Tresidder Union to recapture a bit of youth. Through the window of the place I saw the glow of screens, many screens; there were a few laptops on nearly every table. And the place was bright; students who wanted to use the place to study had clearly complained about the lack of light. The old wood tables had been replaced by a light brown DuPont plastic. The chalkboard menu was gone. And, the ultimate insult: they no longer serve alchohol.

I mentioned to a girl in line who couldn't have been more than 19 that in the old days, the CoHo was a popular place to grab a beer. "That's what my dad tells me," she replied without a hint of irony.