COFFEE

I love coffee, and that goes back to early adult years with me.  My parents were big coffee drinkers, but I didn't develop a taste for it until I got to graduate school.  I drank it occasionally as a child and through my teen years but always loaded it down with a lot of sugar and milk.  Then I went through the black coffee only years, and that fits because they were indeed black years for me.  I almost got away from drinking coffee by the time I was forty years of age, but a stay at a treatment center and AA brought me back to sanity.  I've been a dedicated coffee drinker ever since . . . and I've been sober.  You might be tempted to think the coffee has nothing to do with the sobriety thing, but it does in a roundabout way.  It has to do with lifestyle, a way of living . . . and for everyone, not just former drunks.

Even if I'd never been a booze drinker, I would've loved coffee.  My dad used to say, "Never trust a man who doesn't drink coffee."  He said it jokingly, but he probably meant it.  Maybe he became a coffee drinker the same way I did, from his association with people.  He grew up in Burns, Oregon - cowboy country, and most cowboys I know are coffee drinkers.  And he ended up being a minister, and most preachers turn out to be coffee drinkers.  He was in the military where coffee is a big thing.  What I'm saying is that coffee is somewhat like booze in that it's a social thing.  When people show up at my home, I usually ask if they want coffee.  Coffee and conversation just go together.

My day starts with coffee and ends with it.  I end up making 3 pots of coffee a day, partly because I turned my wife into a coffee drinker.  I've had other influences on her much worse than that.  She didn't curse when I met her, and now she can put a drunk sailor to shame . . . if you piss her off.  I do that a lot too.  As far as the coffee itself is concerned, I'm not a fancy coffee drinker.  I'm not a coffee shop drinker, and that's good because finding a good cup of coffee in this town is almost impossible . . . unless  you make it yourself.  Like almost everyone else, I make mine the easy way - with a drip coffee maker.  If I get a craving for some old time cowboy coffee (and I've had my share of that), I'll get out the old pot and make some.  And I'm almost always overstocked on coffee.  Running out is not an acceptable excuse for starting the day without it.

Doesn't drinking all that coffee make me nervous, or keep me awake?  Nope.  Does it make me irritable or jumpy?  Nope, but I get that way if I don't drink it.  Does that make me a coffee addict?  Probably, but who cares?  I've sure been addicted to worse things.  Doesn't it stain your teeth?  Yep, but I'm 72 years old and my teeth, what's left of them, match the way the rest of me looks.  Besides, being an avid coffee drinker gives me something to look forward to, and that's something all old farts need.  I'm having coffee as I write this.  In a little while the rigors of life in general will set in, and I won't enjoy that nearly as much as I do these early hour moments.  The two times of day I enjoy the most are sunrises and sunsets, and that's when you'll find me with a cup of coffee in hand.  And if you're missing those two times of day, you're missing the sugar and cream of life.  You might need some coffee to go with that.