Three Powerful Coffee Memories

*

This morning, it was a cuppa of French Press.

Do you have memories triggered by that first cup of coffee in the morning?

I do.

Here are my three favorites.

Grandpa Al

When I was growing up, my mom told the story of sitting on her father’s lap as he gave her a spoonful of coffee.

I like thinking of my mom as a child.

With a father I would never meet.

Her dad, Al Thomas, died in 1946, three years before I was born.

That’s him below in 1922, the year my mom was born. Grandpa Al sold life insurance, never missing a day of work, even during the Depression. Although with only a grade school education, he and my grandmother Florence sent three daughters and one son to college in the 1930s.

One of those daughters, my mother Dody, drank coffee for over 90 years. She would have two cups in the morning and one after supper that never kept her awake.

Until in the memory care unit of a nursing home, when, at 95, she forgot who she was, including her love of coffee. Sitting with her in the home’s dining room while her untouched coffee cooled is a memory that lingers.

Why didn’t I offer to spoon her coffee?

Marty

Marty’s family moved to town from Troy, New York, during our sophomore year in high school in 1964. I immediately liked him because he was one of the few boys shorter than me.

And Troy seemed exotic. No, it wasn’t because I had read The Odyssey. That journey wouldn’t happen for forty years. Marty was smart. Smarter than me. At least, that’s what I always thought. And he came from far away, so he was worth knowing.

One of the guys I hung out with, Mike, made fun of Marty. He called him Bomber. Mike was a big guy and a bully, and short guys never liked bullies. Bullies prey on outsiders. I’ve always had a soft spot for outsiders, even though I’ve usually sat comfortably on the outer edge of the inside.

Marty was an outsider who wanted to be accepted.

He lived his adult life in St. Louis as a radio DJ and part-time actor. At our 40-year college reunion, he performed a one-person Shakespeare act. How can you not like a guy like that?

When he died in his sleep three years ago, I remembered my favorite Marty and Paul story.

We went to a college in our home town. Professor Noel Kamasa’s Biology exam would be our first college test, and we figured an all-nighter was in order. It would be my first and only, even with eight more college years.

Marty lived in a small house with parents and two siblings still at home. So his mom sent us to the basement and said she would make coffee.

I had not tried coffee. Nor had I ever spent time on my dad’s knee, except for a very rare tap on my behind.

I waited until well after midnight before I tried my first cup. Marty and I would take turns throwing terms at each other. You either knew photosynthesis or you didn’t. I had never studied. Not really. And the more mature me, the one who would show up in graduate school, was a decade away and could not help. In forty years of college teaching, I never failed to tell my students not to wait until the night before to start studying.

Panic, for both of us, set in. We were both so tired we started laughing. The more we laughed, the more coffee we drank. My stomach felt queasy around 5 am, three hours before the exam. An hour later, I started throwing up. Diarrhea soon followed.

Tired but immune to coffee’s effects, Marty drove us the five miles to class.

It’s funny what you don’t remember more than a half-century later. That first exam grade is lost.

But that coffee time with Marty is preserved, I hope, forever.

The Malta Eleven

In the spring of 2018, Rebecca and I traveled with nine college students to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta. That’s the Malta Eleven below in 2019 at the group’s graduation.

Rebecca and I often reminisce about the four months we spent with this group. My college set up a semester-long program on this island forty years ago. We were the co-directors for 2018. We lived, traveled, and attended classes with the students, agreeing it was one of our peak experiences.

Kaelib, the fellow in the back with his eyes closed, could never keep his eyes open during photos. Never, ever. That’s one of a thousand delightful memories from our time with this group.

Another was my introduction to French Press Coffee.

Rebecca and I arrived in Malta in mid-January, two weeks before the students. Maria, who owned the building that would house all of us, picked us up at the airport. She had also laid out sundry food and drink on a table for the first week. Up early the first morning, I was happy to find a package of ground coffee next to a funny-looking glass container with a lid, filter, and plunger.

Googling, it took me a few minutes to find a similar image so I could put a name to this gadget. Then, I had a few more minutes to discover the new world of French Press coffee in the dining room of an apartment on a busy street in a former British colony.

The steps are now routine: boil the water, spoon the coffee into the carafe, add just enough hot water to create a paste that sits for one minute, pour the rest of the water up almost to the top, fit the filter/plunger, and set the timer for three minutes, and finally, and very carefully, push the plunger down to the bottom.

On that first Malta morning, anxious for the first cuppa, I pushed too hard, splattering coffee grounds and scalding water.

As the timer ticks to zero this morning, I wait patiently for the right moment.

I have memories of my mom, Grandpa Al, Marty, and the Malta Eleven to keep me company.

Rebecca will join me in an hour or so.

When I will do it all again.

*

My mother raised three boys.

Who she taught to put down the toilet seat.

This seat refused my help.

Descending on its own time.

In 21 seconds.

*

The toilet is in a hotel in Iowa City, Iowa — home to the University of Iowa and its 31,000 students.

Rebecca and I joined another couple to tour the Stanley Museum of Art.

And view this Jackson Pollock painting.

You can see a documentary on Pollack’s Mural here.

The University of Iowa is home to America’s first MFA program, the prestigious Writer’s Workshop, and Caitlin Clark, last year’s collegiate basketball National Player of the Year.

Pollack’s Mural resides comfortably in southeast Iowa because nonconformity is everywhere.

Infecting even the desk clerk who took this photo.

So, I wasn’t surprised I encountered a mutinous loo.

*

Later that night, I decided to get into the spirit.

I splattered Pollock-like toothpaste onto the brush and raised my right hand in victory for a Clark-like hand gesture.

With my left hand, I reset the toilet seat.

And brushed my teeth for 21 seconds.

Also, something my mother taught me.

I then sat down.

To write this story.

Managing ADHC in my seventies

*

I’m sure I had a mild form of Attention Deficit Disorder when I was a kid.

But in the 1950s, no one cared.

The Sisters at Sacred Heart School kept a tight lid on their large classrooms.

Particularly Sister Robert Cecile, my 6th grade teacher.

Rainy days were the worst.

No recess.

How many stick figures can a kid sketch?

How many times can he ask permission to go to the bathroom?

Robert Cecile was no fool.

Finally fed up, she would keep me after school on the last day of class.

However, time took care of things. It usually does. My brain matured. I followed.

By my late twenties, I became a civilized adult who could stick to a task.

My revenge was to become a teacher.

The fidgeter was in charge of the fidgetees.

First, five years of trying to figure out 6th graders.

Then, forty years of getting to know undergraduates.

Aware that each of them would, like me, eventually grow up.

*

Today, five years into retirement, I’m still easily distracted.

When I look out the window, no one says, “Paul, quit daydreaming.”

Then, Sister called it laziness. Today, it’s creativity.

Now, I can get up and go to the bathroom anytime.

And I’m encouraged to stay hydrated.

So I move around a lot.

It’s good for the joints.

*

However, the tree outside the window offered no help with this sentence.

My bladder was temporarily empty.

Most importantly, I’ve turned off my MAC’s notifications for my waking hours.

The shade covers Windows, and the cleaning sign bars entry to the bathroom.

No trumpet announcement. No look-at-me red circle.

With the silence of the MAC, I can do my work.

I wish Sister Robert Cecile could see me now.

And that I could see all my former students.

Particularly those 6th graders.

Still lined up two by two, marching into retirement.

And stepping, unmonitored, into their bathrooms.

Imagine this on a rainy day.

Could you?

On a bad day, conjure a better one.

Buck O’Neil did.

Do you know of Buck?

You ought to.

As an introduction, I suggest Joe Posnanski’s The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America.

It’s about much more than baseball or a baseball player.

Buck died at 96 almost twenty years ago. He was a Negro League player, manager, and the first African-American coach on an American Major League Baseball team.

He was a Black baseball player beyond his prime before Jackie Robinson opened the door.

Buck had too many reasons to be bitter to count.

It rained every day on him.

When Posnanski asked how he kept bitterness at bay, Buck said

Where does bitterness take you?

To a broken heart?

To an early grave?

When I die

I want to die from natural causes.

Not from hate

Eating me up from the inside.

One last Buck O’Neil story.

Toward the end of his life, Buck was one of 39 Negro League players, managers, and owners considered by a special committee for induction into American baseball’s Hall of Fame.

17 of the 39 were selected for an honor Buck yearned for and deserved.

But didn’t get.

In July 2006, 16 Black men and one Black woman were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The guest speaker was

Buck O’Neil.

Inspired by Roger Miller’s Chug-a-Lug.

*

No, only one is for me. The one on the left. The other is for Rebecca.

It’s five o’clock.

No Chug-a-Lug. No hi-de-ho.

My tummy will burn, but that’s our bean soup for lunch.

These stories are about my 19-year-old self in 1968.

I’ll bet you remember 19.

So you know they won’t be pretty.

But they will explain why my Gin and Tonic is small, ice-full, and the only one.

Screwdriver in a seedy apartment

It was an early summer Friday night. Jerry picked me up. We had just finished our first year of college. He worked at a gas station, and I managed the snack bar at the country club.

Jerry was an experienced drinker. I was still a virgin.

The party was in a second-floor apartment in a rundown house a few blocks north of Sacred Heart Cathedral and School, where I had been an altar boy and attended grade school.

We walked up rickety outdoor steps, through a half-opened door, and into a dimly lit living room with a couch and a few chairs. Jerry went into the kitchen to put his illegal six-pack into the refrigerator. Three people were standing around: two men and a woman. I didn’t know them, and they seemed older.

Sitting on the kitchen counter was a glass pitcher full of what looked like orange juice, surrounded by paper picnic cups.

“Try a screwdriver,” said Jerry, “vodka and orange juice.”

I don’t remember how many I had, but my head spun. And my tongue loosened for slurred words.

Jerry helped me down the steps and dropped me off at home.

Where I walked up the 21 front yard steps I shoveled in the winter and through the front door.

I never used the front door. No one in our family of five ever did except for guests.

Who now filled the living, dining, and family room, sitting around card tables my mom had borrowed for my parents’ Friday night Bridge Duplicate.

I offered three hellos, and Crab walked the 13 steps to my bedroom, which I shared with my brother Peter.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, the nausea hit.

The following day, I felt like I wanted to die. My head throbbed. But the snack bar couldn’t run itself. Before I opened, I went to see Ronnie, the bartender. He looked at me and said, “You need a bloody Mary.”

One Beer and a broken table

Later that summer, on August 28, 1968, Screwdriver Jerry picked me up again for a party at my other friend Jerry’s house. Why do I remember the date?

It’s the Thursday night of the Democratic Party’s Presidential Convention in Chicago — the night of the clash between the Chicago police and those demonstrating against, well, almost everything going wrong in America.

The two Jerry’s, me and, I think, host Jerry’s sister, were in the basement watching all of this on TV. Jerry’s dad would occasionally come down the basement steps to rail against the kids on the street. But he didn’t mind the beers we were drinking.

The one I had was too many.

My two Jerry friends were rooting for the Chicago police. So, I stood up too fast to make a counter-point. And fell over and broke Jerry’s mom’s new end table.

On the way home, Screwdriver Jerry, always with my best interest in mind, dropped me off in front of Sharon’s house. Sharon was my first girlfriend, with whom I had broken up the summer before.

A couple of days later, Jerry would tell me I peed on her front lawn.

Three beers and Gina at Danceland

Thankfully, for you and me, this 3rd story is short.

In the fall of 1968, my college sponsored dances every Friday night at Danceland. Usually, I would go with a few friends.

On this Friday, Mike went along.

Danceland served cheap beer in plastic cups. Before too long, I downed three.

Chug-a-lugs.

Gina was pretty and sitting by herself.

My defenses down and courage up, I went over and asked if I could join her.

We talked for a while; I leaned over and kissed her lightly out of nowhere.

And she kissed me back.

That’s all.

*

Three days later, during a pool game, while we were cutting class, Mike said to me:

You know Gina is the girlfriend of the star forward on the basketball team.

And then he said something only a true friend would say.

Paul, you’re an idiot when you drink.

A message this self-respecting 19-year-old needed only to hear once.

Hi-de-ho.

Turn back before it’s too late.

*

What else is a fella to do?

Who, at 74, is one year older than Walter Matthau when he made Grumpy Old Men.

With co-star Ann-Marget, who never stopped smiling.

Two years later, they do it again with Grumpier Old Men, with Sophia Loren, who never stopped smiling.

Would one Grumpy Old Woman be asking too much?

And Grammarly, what’s your problem with fella? You don’t slap a purple line under, dude.

I know; I click dismiss, and the purple line disappears.

But I like to play by the rules if the rules make sense.

That’s what nice fellas do.

But Ann Margret’s & Sophia Loren’s are changing the world.

Because someone thinks newer is better.

Our town’s mayor is a woman. The first woman to run the city. She smiles a lot. I’m a progressive fella, so I voted for her.

She couldn’t leave well enough alone.

One of her new ideas was a new leaf pick-up program. The rule used to be to rake the leaves into the street. The workers would not scoop them up if they were on the boulevard.

Two years ago, pushed by the mayor, the street department bought a new-fangled leaf vacuum truck. Now, the leaves must be out of the street, ON the boulevard, but no more than five feet from the curb.

Yesterday, I raked some leaves from the street onto my lawn.

Really?

I came into the house to write a blog about this ridiculous new program and tried to log into WordPress. I received this message: you must create a two-step verification to continue.

Ugh.

It’s bad enough that I must keep changing my password every six months. Now, I need to keep my phone handy when I check my dwindling bank account. Someone had to pay for that new street cleaner. Or when I want to rant on my blog. And remember whether it was Tommy or Jimmy who was my best friend when I was 10.

Speaking of two steps, I used to be able to unscrew any lid with one movement. I could hit a baseball and golf ball a long way for my size — strong wrists from scooping ice cream at sixteen. I couldn’t cook, but I could unscrew.

Wouldn’t you want this fella around?

Now, I’m reduced to this.

*

My friend Will, 92, in Assisted Living, said to me the other day, “There can’t be room-controlled thermostats in his complex because no one understands how they work.”

And then he told me a hilarious story about how he and Harland, also a resident and 98, were sitting around his apartment last week, and suddenly, from a corner, Alexa started speaking up. The digital assist box that housed Alexa had arrived a few weeks earlier as a gift from Will’s nephew. Neither could figure out how to silence her, so they threw a blanket over the table.

That’s Will and Harland at a recent Life Long Learning Seminar on Death and Dying. You can read my stories on this course here.

They are the anti-curmudgeons. Each does his best to keep up with the changes the world throws at them ever-increasingly. But they also have begun to hold many things lightly. And each has a sense of humor, whether about death or Alexa.

Years ago, as they neared Curmudgeonville, they must have turned around before it was too late.

And now serve as role models.

As do Ann Margret (82) and Sophia Loren (89), still smiling.

Postscript

Our community’s Mayor, Lorraine, is widely acclaimed as the best mayor in decades and handily won re-election.

The new leaf vacuum program, bugs worked out the first year, works like a charm.

Tommy, of course.

But I changed the question.

*

There’s a reason for every season.

But it’s not really about us.

Humans.

We’re all about making meaning.

As if the tree needs a biographer.

It doesn’t.

It just is.

But I do.

Demand a reason.

For this season.

So I borrow what’s not mine.

*

Fall descends.

Darkness.

Death everywhere.

Inevitable.

No escape.

Even though I try to hide the evidence.

*

Have you ever seen

Anything so foolish

As me.*

_________________________________________________________________

*Yes, you are right; this is an oblique reference to Joyce Kilmer’s poem Trees.

Photography

Nature

Part III of a Life Long Learning Seminar on Death & Dying

*

It was another sunny Wednesday morning for our forty souls. This was the third of four Death, Dying, and Living classes. You can read about the seminar here and review our first and second sessions.

Two played hooky.

Harland (98 and with the microphone) and Will (92 and to Harland’s right) had a prior engagement. They joined out-of-town friends for an annual luncheon.

By the way, fifty years ago, Larry, to Harland’s left, was a student of Will and Harland’s. Will was a Professor of Religion and Classics, and Harland, English.

The assignment for the third session was to watch the film Jack Has a Plan. My colleague Alan showed the movie at 7 a.m. in our seminar room before class for those who couldn’t attend the Sunday screening. My other colleague, Ruth, baked a blueberry coffee cake. If this sounds slightly sexist, you don’t know Ruth.

Jack Tuller, a resident of California, was diagnosed with brain cancer 25 years ago. The documentary, by a friend of his, chronicles the last three years of his life, including his plan to die on a Friday at 4 p.m. Because California is one of ten states that allow physician-assisted death, Jack was able to choose a time to die. You can see the states on the map below.

I’ve linked you to the film’s website, which includes a summary of Jack’s story, photos, awards, and a review of the right-to-die issue.

It’s a powerful and uncomfortable film. We asked our participants to join several others to discuss how this film spoke to them.

*

Alan, Ruth, and I each joined a small group. In my group, people told stories of loved ones who might have selected Jack’s option if they had lived in a state that protected medical aid in dying.

You get a sense of the main case for this position by looking at the names of the laws in each state. (source)

Oregon: Oregon Death with Dignity Act

Washington: Washington Death with Dignity Act

Vermont: Vermont Patient Choice and Control at the End of Life Act

California: California End-of-Life Option

Colorado: Colorado End-of-Life Option

Washington D.D.: D.C. Death with Dignity Act

Hawaii: Hawaii’s Our Care, Our Choice Act

New Jersey: New Jersey Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act

Maine: Maine Death with Dignity Act

New Mexico: New Mexico Elizabeth Whitefield End of Life Options Act

Montana: Baxter v. Montana (The State Supreme Court case that ruled in favor of Medical Aid in Dying)

In the film, Jack throws a party for friends and family on the day he chooses to die. At 3:30, with tears and hugs, the guests depart, leaving Jack and his wife alone. She will help administer the three prescribed drugs. The camera also goes with Jack telling us he “will die a happy man.”

A neighbor of Jack’s said, “Jack did not kill himself. He chose to die before the cancer killed him.” The California law sanctions choice for those who have a six-month terminally ill diagnosis.

So, the main argument in favor of medically assisted dying (notice that no state uses the term suicide) for those in the prescribed condition requires that the government protect their right to choose. Sanctioning their choice is rooted in their dignity as human beings.

In my group, most of us accepted the choice perspective under the condition of a terminal illness. We were glad Jack lived in California and could follow his personal vision.

*

But not all of Jack’s friends and family accepted his decision. The same was true in our small group and, as it became clear when we convened the large group, in other groups.

The most compelling counter-argument was that Jack was a part of a community. He was not only an individual. And the community would miss his person, his voice. One member of our group worried that medically sanctioned death was an example of individualism that had gone too far.

Our class read an article by New York Times columnist David Brooks that developed this perspective and used Canada’s law to illustrate how a policy that limits beneficiaries to the terminally ill has been expanded to include those who are suffering psychologically.

One of Jack’s friends, a cartoonist, said to Jack, “It’s almost like you are a character in this movie. But you’re not. You are a real person who is still a part of our lives.”

We invited a retired physician to join our class for the Jack conversation. He told us he disagreed with the Oregon law when it was passed a decade ago. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he could prescribe for Jack.

*

I’ve seen the Jack film twice, one year apart. The second time, a week ago, I wished Jack would change his mind. Part of me understood his fear that he would soon be unable to get out of bed. And that he found it increasingly difficult to do the simplest things. But another part saw that his friends and family would help him up to the end.

A gift for him.

And for them.

What do you think?

____________________________________

For the last session, we invited a funeral home director and a minister. The theme is Closure.

No, not the one in Colorado, USA.

This Pike’s Peak is in Iowa. Zebulon Pike looked out over the Mississippi River in 1805 and saw a perfect site for a fort. One year later, he explored the southeast territory of Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase and bumped into the Rockies.

Iowa’s Pike’s Peak State Park is known as Little Switzerland.

This is Rebecca and me in big Switzerland in 2018.

OK, you get the point.

We walk a lot. My phone tells me that over the last 26 weeks, I’ve walked an average of 2.6 miles daily; that’s 6,761 steps per day.

On Sunday’s two-and-a-half-hour hike through Iowa’s Pike’s Peak, my Health app registered just under 12,000 steps. My body, at 74, told me 12,000 had become the step-ceiling. Rebecca is two years younger, but we were equally slumped in our chairs later that day.

My mother walked about two miles a day until a hip replacement at 89 cut that in half. Sadly, it’s no coincidence that five years later, when she was in the early stages of dementia, we moved her into a memory care unit because we couldn’t keep her inside the house she had lived in for 60 years.

What had kept her going was now a danger.

That walk in the Alps five years ago? We hiked for five hours, 10 miles, at 10,000 feet.

Could we do that hike today? Rebecca says yes, of course, we could. And more importantly, “we should think we can.”

I’m not so sure. I’ve started to become comfortable with slowing down physically. Thus, my 12,000 step limit.

Rebecca believes this kind of thinking is a slippery slope. Once you go down that path, it will be too easy to stop.

Two days ago, we hiked in Palisade Park. To get to the park, we walked outside our front door and took a right. I snapped this photo from the summit. The red arrow points to our home. Our round-trip hike to the 112-foot high point was about 7000 steps.

As we sat, huffing and puffing a bit, on a bench looking out over our town, I honed in on a cemetery close to our home. Too close. I’ve planted, Pike-like, a red flag on the sloped place for the dead.

Here’s a close-up.

The cemetery’s downward contour reminded me of Rebecca’s slippery slope worry.

It’s easy to slalom down to the inevitable when you’re on an upslope.

Alps: 10,000 feet & 52,000 steps.

Pike Jr.: 1250 feet & 12,000 steps.

Palisade Park: 112 feet & 7,000 steps.

Cremation urns

Yet, it’s possible to hold these two thoughts in tension.

Stay active for as long as possible. By doing so, it becomes a part of who you are. My mother kept walking out her dog-scratched back door even after she had forgotten who she was.

But accept the inevitability of the downward slope. The Alps to Pike Jr. to Palisade becomes a natural regression. You remain in control. You can flatten the imaginary hill so it’s not slippery.

And you accept that the no-step day will come.

Mom had it right.

Every day, you go out that door.

Rebecca has it right.

Be careful with the temptation to slow down.

Me?

Later today, I’m doing my 12,000.

Before I rake the leaves.

A Conversation

My favorite food is ice cream.

What’s yours?

Pizza.

Why?

You remember your dad bringing home pizza every Friday night. And your mom was more relaxed than usual. And you could serve yourself. And eat with your hands in front of the TV. And instead of milk, Pepsi.

Nice.

Why is ice cream my favorite food?

See that Chocolate Pecan Tornado in the photo.

I took the photo two weeks ago because it would be my last Tornado until spring. I also took this one later in the day. I’m not the only one who would be sad after the last spoonful.

Do you have pizza every Friday night?

Like clockwork, for sixty years. I’m not surprised.

Ice cream has been my favorite food for about that long, too. After mass on Sunday, my father would have pancakes ready for us. He didn’t go to church. When my mom and he were married in 1948, the priest insulted him because my dad was a Protestant. That was it for him.

During the summer, we would eat breakfast on the patio he built and rebuilt. A few hours later, the five of us (Paul, Peter, Pat, and Mom and Dad) would pile in our station wagon and head down to Iowana Dairy on the Mississippi Riverfront. We would sit at the counter and order an ice cream malt or sundae for lunch. I always ordered a chocolate malt that could only be eaten with a spoon. The straw was for show.

Everyone was relaxed and happy.

That’s why, six decades later, I still feel like a part of me has died with every last spoonful.

Do you feel that way every Friday with that final bite of crust? Like a small part of you has died.

I understand. There’s always next Friday. You are lucky. There are 52 Fridays in a year.

What’s that?

Sometimes 53, in a leap year. And 2024 is a leap year, but only 52 Fridays.

Interesting. Wait a minute. You said next year, there is a February 29.

Why does that matter to me?

That means an extra day before Whippy Dip reopens. It usually starts up again sometime in April, often Easter weekend.

Easter is early in 2024, on March 31, you say.

Fantastic, but why do you know this?

I see. You fast during Lent and give up pizza. And Good Friday is the last supper without pizza. And during Lent, you replace pizza with fish tacos. But no Pepsi.

Nice.

Do I ever give up ice cream?

Tornados, October through March.

But there’s always Breyer’s Chocolate.