The other morning I headed for the Egg Shell restaurant just down the road from our home to join a friend for breakfast. My PDA scheduled us for 7a.m; but his, I later learned, said 7:30. Result? I had a half hour to drink coffee and observe life around me.

Sitting at 2 or 3 shoved together tables not far from my booth were ten baseball capped men in working clothes and mud-caked boots. The same group is always there whenever I breakfast at the Egg Shell. They sit shoulder to shoulder saying little to each other. Mainly, they read their copies of the New Hampshire Union Leader and shovel down omelets and home fries.

I once asked Cindy, a server at the Egg Shell, who they were. She said they were retired guys who had met for breakfast for years. "They're like a bunch of brothers," she added. "They do lots of stuff together." She didn't say what the stuff was.

When these mostly non-verbal men finished their breakfasts, they paid their bills, grabbed their coats and grunted goodbyes to Cindy. ...