BLFeb2021toWeb

The Column
By Chuck Van Riper
Coffee
F
rom a very early age, my brother Billy and I have loved
coffee. We loved the smell, the flavor, everything about
coffee. When we were young, the family would gather for
holidays and such. After dinner, Grandma would put on
the coffee. It was one of those percolator types. The fancy
silver one with the fancy engravings on top. It took a half
an hour to perculate a pot. I can still smell that aroma wafting
through the house. It was almost as good a smell as
the lasagna and Italian sausage that preceded it. The kids
were always dispatched to the basement to play after dinner.
Mom would always come down to check on us. We
would plead for coffee! She would put a sugar cube on a
spoon and dip it in some of her coffee with cream and give
us each one. That was what heaven must taste like.
Growing up, Billy and I shared a room with twin beds
separated by our always on stereo/radio/8-Track player.
One night, we were laying there restlessly. We must have
been about 10. I said “Sure would like some coffee right
now”. “Yea!”, Billy replied. “I can smell it now. Sure
would taste good.” I said, continuing “Can’t you smell it?
Can’t you taste it?” Billy said “Shut up! You’re going to
make me want some!” I kept it up, “Coffee, coffee, smell
it..”. In unison: Mommm! Mom came in. “What’s the matter?”
“Can we have a cup of coffee?” we inquired. After
much debate, Mom told us she would makes us a cup of
coffee if we went right to sleep afterwards. Deal! So she
made us each a cup of coffee in styrofoam cups with a lot
of sugar and mostly milk. That night, I had never had a
cup of coffee that tasted so good. As agreed upon, we went
right to sleep after that. We appreciated mom a little more
after that night.
By the time we got to high school, every day after
school started with at least one cup of joe. Nescafe instant
was the coffee-de-jour, with 3 sugars and milk. Our
house was kind of the hang out for after school. We would
sit around drinking our coffee concoctions, solving all
the world’s problems, playing board games, telling jokes,
the usual after school stuff, but with coffee, It was during
these formative years when I went to a friend’s house
and in their kitchen was a coffee pot sitting in some thingamabob
that looked like a space ship control panel. I was
fascinated. “That’s a Mr. Coffee. Haven’t you seen one?”,
she replied. She explained it was a “drip machine” that
18 - Brevard Live February 2021