Coffee Addict

One of my earliest memories is of my mom, dad, brother, and me all sitting in our parents’ bed, reading the comics and drinking coffee. Yes…we were pretty young and drinking coffee. Wow. No wonder I’m an addict.

            As the years went by, one thing remained permanent; coffee; hundreds of cups during college, and surely thousands during my teaching years. When Don and I got married in my senior year at Biola, and we sat in our tiny kitchen after our honeymoon, my new marriage was threatened (not really) by his polite refusal of a cup of coffee! It’s hard to believe, but I cried and said, “My mother always drank coffee with me on Saturday morning!” Oh brother. However, he totally redeemed himself on a short trip in our VW a few months later.. We’d left before sunrise and as we drove over the Grapevine I whined, “I wish I had a cup of coffee.” My new husband reached back behind the seat and brought out a brand-new Thermos full of coffee!

            I actually tried to figure out my intake once, and came up with a shocking twenty-four cups a day. That was a wake-up call and I stopped cold turkey which was stupid because withdrawal was bad with flu-like symptoms, complete with chills and nausea. For several years afterward, I took my trusty Thermos to school, filled with a half leaded and half unleaded brew.

            My love of coffee proved to be dangerous and embarrassing a few times at my elementary school. The biggest mistake was taking a cup back to the classroom with me most days because recess was never long enough, and in the “olden days,” we had to stand duty on the playground during our break. The path to my classroom door had its share of coffee spills, but the real damage was to my desk. Don’t even ask how a whole cup of hot coffee ended up in the drawer! So thankful no child ever suffered from my addiction, not even my own as a distaste for the lovely brown liquid always heralded my three pregnancies and I did without for the first half.

            The brewing process has taken a long and “grinding” road through scores of different makers; aluminum and stainless steel percolators, a press, Mr. Coffee, Melitta, Braun, Krups, a wonderful grind and brew machine, espresso, and most recently, a Keurig. This is the height of lazy but delicious coffee making. Most unorthodox was a sock filled with grounds and prepared with the hottest water ever to flow from a faucet in a Yosemite Lodge room. I just dunked it in the cup in tea bag fashion. Tasty! Of course the sock was clean. Don assured me it wasn’t a new way, but the “cowboy way.” I told you I’m an addict, and they must have been addicts too! Proof of that was coffee in metal cups at the Bar D Ranch in Colorado hot enough to burn your lips off. Speaking of cups, I've amassed at least a hundred different mugs, most which say "Teacher." 

            We learn by example, and both my darling granddaughters like to make and drink “pretend coffee” when they’re at our home. Sometimes they serve on Grandmother’s special coffee table which I made myself from a $10 used end table covered with fifty or so coffee bean labels, displayed under glass. Smart girls. Even their Grandpops has his half a cup a day now!