The other writer

Back when I was 16...
I was in the Borders coffee place and this old man comes and sits down, frustrated by the help of his daughter (probably almost 50 herself). When she left he was able to be at peace, he could watch others and just work. So he takes out his notepad of yellow paper and I really want to talk to him, because now's the only time I'll get to tell him that I think he's incredible because he's sitting right across from me and we're both writers and we're both writing and we've both taken a moment to glance at what the other person is writing in curious skepticism and we're both drinking coffee drinks and we're both extremes on the ages, he's near the end of his life and my life's near the beginning. So finally I asked him, "What are you writing?" And he smiles, that 'Yes! This is the situation we both wanted it to be' smile that writers get when asked about their work and answers "A Novel" "What's it about?" I ask, and he told me, and I listened, and after the one sentence synopsis he told me about the scene he was writing, and then he said "Thank you for asking" and I forget what I said and I went back to writing and so did he and we were comfortable strangers, proud of a moment.