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Ben Callahan had lived in New Harmony, Indiana, all his life. A retired electrician, he spent his mornings at the Corner Coffee Café, a snug place on Church Street with checkered curtains and the smell of cinnamon rolls baked in-house.
Every morning, Ben ordered the same thing: black coffee, two eggs over easy, and a slice of rye toast. And every so often, they got something wrong. One morning, the toast came white, the next the eggs were runny. The younger Ben would’ve grumbled, called the waitress back, maybe even walked out. But now, at 78, he just quietly swapped the toast with his wife’s or passed the eggs to the next table’s farmhand kid.
“Why don’t you ever send it back?” his wife Judy asked one morning, sliding her hash browns toward him.
Ben smiled, stirring sugar into his coffee. “Because it’s breakfast, not a courtroom. I come here for peace, not perfection.”
The regulars knew Ben didn’t make a fuss. So when one Tuesday a waitress spilled an entire pot of decaf near his chair, Ben just stood up, laughed, and patted her on the back. “Well now, I needed a new story to tell at bingo night,” he joked.
That afternoon, the owner of the café taped a small sign behind the register that read, “Be like Ben: kind, patient, and never without a smile.”
Ben didn’t see the sign until weeks later, but when he did, he only chuckled. He never liked being the center of attention. But he did like his eggs the way Judy made them at home, without fuss, and always with love.
