Seniors Need Third Spaces, Too

I’m still searching for mine

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As a child, I loved spending a week every summer at my grandparents’ house. Each day would be filled with good food, trips to the swimming pool, and games of freeze tag with the neighborhood children.

As an extra bonus, my brother and I would accompany Grandpa every weekday morning when he went for coffee.

My grandparents lived in a small farming community that boasted two restaurants, both with great coffee. Sometimes our grandfather would go to the one beside the feed store, and other times he’d order his coffee at the diner across from the park.

The best days were when he’d go to both.

I never questioned why my grandfather needed to go out for coffee even though my grandmother always had a pot brewing at home.

I didn’t understand it at the time, but the restaurants were my grandfather’s “third place.” Those restaurants were as integral to his daily life and routine as working in his extensive garden or relaxing in the modest home he shared with my grandmother.

Urban sociologist identified the concept of having a public gathering space in his book, Celebrating the Third Place. Although, people had been finding and celebrating their third places long before Oldenburg gave the…