Three Powerful Coffee Memories

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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.