Painting by Currier and Ives 1881


I HAVE JUST DISCOVERED THAT I WROTE A PIECE VERY SIMILAR TO THIS BACK AT THE END OF 2007. BUT THE PICTURE IS NEW. I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S THIS TIME OF YEAR THAT GETS ME THINKING SERIOUSLY ENOUGH ABOUT COFFEE THAT I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT IT OR WHAT. I KNOW THAT SEEING THIS PICTURE OF THE GUY DRINKING COFFEE GOT ME GOING THIS TIME. BUT I THINK I WILL HAVE TO SPEND A LITTLE TIME RESEARCHING SO I DON'T START REPEATING AGAIN AND AGAIN. SORRY.

In my adult life I seem to be engaged in an on and off again relationship with coffee. I picked up the quasi-habit when I entered the military. I remember I preferred it black because I did not like the taste when I added canned evaporated milk to it, and that's all they offered. It wasn't a coffeehouse. (It just occurred to me; isn't evaporated milk a sort of oxy-moron? If milk is evaporated then there is nothing there? Oh well that's something for later maybe.) Later whenever I ordered it out on the economy as we used to say, I would receive strong coffee, weak coffee and sometimes great coffee. After a while I became confused (easy to do) and just decided to switch to tea. I stayed with tea, well forever, but in recent times I have also redeveloped a taste for coffee. I never have gotten into the Starbuck, double this, add that fad. I may be a little too dumb to remember all the slang and buzz words, so I just stick to the standard stuff and add a little coffee-mate and a small amount of sugar. Now I know that would set 'real coffee drinkers' into shivers of repulsion but to each his own I guess. My wife has found a couple brands I like better than the others. Two of my favorites are Bob Evans coffee, and Duncan donut coffee, yes they sell it by the package to take home. I still drink tea also, so I guess I will go through life swerving back and forth from the coffee lane to the tea lane. It could be worse, it's not alcoholic or very expensive.