It all began at Baptist Hospital of Miami during the late ’60s and early ’70s. Every morning around 8:30 (beginning when I was a nursing assistant), the "Braintrust," which included Rusty Slay, the CFO; Bob Gunter, the lab director; Art Mellios, the food services director; Eddie Condron, the controller; and Joe Smith, the environmental services director; would get together to review the activities of the previous day and plan for the next softball game. Many of the hospital’s (and the world’s) problems were solved during those breaks. The same group would meet for lunch and again at 2:00 p.m. for coffee. I was new to private sector healthcare so I just figured that was the way things worked.

From that starting point I took the "coffee klatch" tool with me wherever I went. The cafeteria is the social hub of every organization. Most everybody goes through it at least once a day. And when they are there, they are generally in a good and approachable mood — much less adversarial than when they are defending their home turf.

So it’s a good place to get things done — and have fun.

At lunch you can suddenly have access to someone with whom you would have difficulty scheduling a meeting. At several hospitals where I’ve worked, I have found myself having lunch with the CEO. At one place, the Controller and I ate with the CEO two to three times a week. When given an opportunity like that you can (1) break down the barriers associated with status (to a certain degree) and (2) air out some of your opinions/ideas to someone at the highest level in a casual manner.

At Genesis Health System in the Quad Cities, Pete Fromme, the director of finance, and I held court every day from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. We were so consistent in our presence that other managers would plan their day so they could join us at lunch to discuss their issues. In fact, we were both cited by another director for the service we offered by being available every day in the cafeteria.

Ahhh, the rewards of constructive loafing.

But the real value of having a "cafeteria presence" is the people you meet there. This story is about two of them — both from the "Greatest Generation," albeit from different ends of the spectrum.

Paul and Louie have several things in common. Both are 86 years old. Both live in Iowa. Both are irascible. Both are veterans of the military in World War II. I first met both of them in the cafeteria of the hospital where I worked. And both are characters of the highest order.

I met Paul first — in 1994. Every day he would shuffle into the cafeteria wearing a white lab coat and what looked like a pair of slippers! He was stoop shouldered, had gray hair and a flat top haircut and a facial expression that reminded me of the cartoon dog Droopy.

I soon discovered that he worked in radiology as a volunteer, but had worked at the hospital for several years as a central services technician. He was friends with some of the members of our morning coffee klatch group and he began to join us. When he did, he would tell stories that would leave us laughing until we cried. His meek voice would regale us with profanity-laced tales that included:

• Getting stuck in the barbed-wire during the "crawling under machine gun fire" portion of infantry training in Arkansas (they had to halt the proceedings to extricate him, after which he was removed from the possibility of going into combat. Instead, he handed out ammo to the troops in training).

• Getting tired of processing soiled bedpans during his days in central services (his solution was to take them outside and throw them on the roof).

• His ongoing war with the director of environmental services who he claimed threw away his service records (he had brought them to work to be copied and had placed them in a waste basket on which he placed a sign that read "Do Not Dispose." Of course, the staff dumped it).

Paul was sent home after only six months in the service. He came back to his home town, and in his entire life, except for one trip to Des Moines, he never traveled more than 40 miles from where he was born.

I helped fulfill three of Paul’s life’s wishes. With the help of his friend Henry in radiology, we petitioned the Army Record Center in St. Louis to get a copy of his service records. Second, I paid his American Legion dues every year I was there so he could have a military burial if he died. Third, I bought him a "boom box" and searched the second-hand record stores and Internet until I could make him a tape collection of his favorite group — The Six Fat Dutchmen, a Wisconsin-based polka band from the ’50s and ’60s.

The day I gave it to him he brought it to the cafeteria at lunch, put in the tape, turned up the volume and danced a polka for us in his lab coat and slippers (he had bad feet). I’ll never forget that sight.

I met Louie in 2000. I would see him every morning at breakfast and most days at lunch. He was a gnarly-looking dude who always wore a "USMC" cap with several pins on it. He appeared to be missing parts of a couple of fingers.

One day I sat down with him and our friendship began. It turns out he lived in the neighborhood — right across the street to be exact. Everyday he would walk over for breakfast, and most days he would return for lunch.

Louie had indeed been a Marine in WWII, and unlike Paul, he had actually seen battle. In fact, it turns out he had been on the landings and subsequent battles for Guadalcanal, the Philippines, Okinawa and Iwo Jima. The casualties in those landings were phenomenal! I don’t even know how to begin to calculate the probability against Louie being alive in 2000, but it had to be huge. He lost parts of his fingers during the war, and his demeanor was as gnarly as his appearance.

We became fast buddies. He liked me because he knew I had been a corpsman with the Marines in Vietnam. We had a common bond.

Every day we would have breakfast — Louie, me, Paul Jones and Pete — all veterans, and all familiar with the words required to carry on a socially-acceptable military conversation. One word in particular had to be used in every sentence if a person were to call himself a Marine, and believe me, Louie used that word well.

One day shortly before the start of the Iraq war a hospital executive joined us and waxed political about why the war was necessary. Louie sat there glowering, but saying nothing. When the executive left, Louie turned to us and said, "What the @#$% does he know about war? The only thing he’s ever had to fight is his desk chair."

Enough said.

While I was there Louie never paid for anything. I made the people in both the cafeteria and the snack bar bill me for whatever he bought. It was the least I could do for my hero.

So here’s my challenge. When you go to the cafeteria, hang out awhile longer than usual. And keep your eyes open for the characters that frequent the place.