If I have a few minutes to spare in the morning I try to grab a coffee at the new cafe that opened in the old Train Station. The place sat empty for years and my wife and I hoped someone would turn it into something. On weekends I can sit down and stare out the window lazily and enjoy the whoosh and whistle of trains passing by the large windows that face the river. On weekday mornings like today my time is calculated to the minute. I ordered a regular coffee with about two or three minutes to spare, eyeing the bend in the track around the river for signs of the Southbound 7:50 to Grand Central. The girl behind the counter was young and obviously a new employee. She did everything a bit slowly and deliberately.  As she fumbled with the lid, my eyes bore into her, likely glazed with impatience despite myself. Then, she stopped what she was doing and smiled up at me. Guileless. And all the tension left my body. It reminded me of the time we moved to a small town upstate about 10 years ago and how taken aback I was when the school children would stop and wave at us. Just to say hi. Back in Manhattan its version of friendliness exists, but that sort of spontaneous animal warmth has been bred out of people. I sometimes think it's an anachronism until I encounter it in the wild.