A Cup Of Joe Says A Lot About Us (standard:humor, 963 words)
Author: Godspenman	Added: Sep 18 2005	Views/Reads: 3400/2222	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This week I came face-to-face with a genuine dilemma. I had several meetings across town and for some reason I miscalculated and ended up with a 2-1/2 hour gap between meetings. I hate to waste time, but if I drove back to my office, I would simply have t

This week I came face-to-face with a genuine dilemma. I had several
meetings across town and for some reason I miscalculated and ended up 
with a 2-1/2 hour gap between meetings. I hate to waste time, but if I 
drove back to my office, I would simply have to return to my meeting 
later and with the cost of gas these days, one cannot be too cautious. 

You know gas is getting high when it costs more to fill up the car than
the car is actually worth. The most valuable thing in my car is in my 
gas tank. 

I remedied the situation by stopping in a small coffee shop for cup of
Joe. As far as I'm concerned, there is no bad time to have a cup of 
coffee, in spite of the price. I ordered my coffee and when the 
waitress brought it to me, I began to think about coffee. Why did God 
give us coffee? 

Then my mind went back to my grandfather, whose great gift to me was a
love of coffee. Nobody loved coffee more. I remember one of his 
favorite quotes, "You can always tell a man by the coffee drinks." 

Anathema to my grandfather was the idea of instant coffee. No man, in
his opinion, would ever drink anything of the kind. "If a man would 
drink instant coffee," my grandfather perked, "there's no telling what 
else he would do. Never trust a man who drinks instant coffee." 

Making coffee was an art form to my grandfather. There was a right way
and a wrong way to make coffee, and he always insisted on the right 
way. Of course, the right way was the way he made coffee. 

In grandfather's kitchen was an old wood-burning cook stove. My
grandmother cooked meals on this ancient apparatus for more than 50 
years. Sure, she eventually got an electric stove but it was more for 
show than anything else. 

On this old-fashioned stove, my grandfather brewed his famous mud broth.
He never allowed my grandmother to make the brew; it was his job, which 
he took seriously. 

Once for his birthday we all chipped in and bought him an electric
coffee pot. I had never seen my grandfather so mad. When he saw what it 
was he would not even take it out of the box. 

He had strong ideas about coffee and how it should be brewed and woe be
to the person who contradicted his ideas. 

Grandfather always kept a fire in the old wood cook stove and on the
back of the stove he kept his coffee pot, a large 2-gallon pot — one of 
those old-fashioned percolators long since gone out of style. The 
coffee was always on, and no matter when you stopped in to see him, he 
always had "fresh" coffee brewing. 

When I say "fresh" I need to explain. Actually, the coffee was only
fresh on Sunday. On Saturday night, he routinely emptied the coffee pot 
and prepared fresh coffee for Sunday morning. 

He had an old coffee grinder and ground the coffee beans on Saturday
night. He put some other things in the coffee, I have never figured out 
what. One thing I know he put in was a crushed eggshell. What it did to 
his coffee I have no idea, but grandfather was sure it was an important 
ingredient. 

The freshly-ground coffee beans were put in, the pot filled with fresh
water and set on the back of the stove to slowly perk. This coffee 
would last the entire week. The coffee was so strong on Sunday that if 
it didn't wake you in the morning, you were dead. 

In fact, cousin Ernie died on a Sunday afternoon, so my grandfather
tells the story, and one sip of his black coffee roused him and he 
lived seven more years, which was unfortunate for grandfather, as he 
had to support him. 

Before retiring each evening my grandfather took care of his coffee. He
would freshly grind a few coffee beans, sprinkle it on top of the old 
coffee grounds, and then add a newly crushed eggshell. Then he would 
refill the coffee pot with water. 


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