To the editor:
Most folks like me need something to get the sap flowing upon starting the day.
In a lot of cases, that something is coffee. Now, I didn’t drink much coffee early in my life. As kids, living out in the woods during the summer (Mom was glad to get us from under foot, she would say), we would swipe some of Mom’s coffee and put it in a tin can with some water, boil it over the campfire. After the grounds had settled, we would choke it down. It wasn’t until I was in Korea that I started my day with coffee.
Now, the hardest thing to get in Korea was a good drink of water. Since all water had to be purified with a bunch of chemicals, they figured, “Why not just make coffee with it?” I guess GI coffee was better than our campfire coffee, but in the Korean winter, anything steaming hot in a tin cup was welcomed.
Some folks doctor up their coffee with creamers and sugar. Some even drink $10 cups of latte. Not me. I want my coffee straight up and down black. There are dozens of contraptions that make coffee. Like the mousetrap, everybody is trying to make a better one. I have tried them all. Most end up in a garage sale.
While in Florida, our friends from Minnesota offer up the best coffee. I ask Ruth, “How do you make such good coffee?” “We use a percolator.”
My first reaction was this must be one of the new things. Then the fog lifts in my head and I remember mom used a percolator. Sure enough, I remember waking up in the morning hearing “perk, perk, perk.” Yes, percolators really perk.
As soon as we got home, I went out to buy a percolator. Now, I know what you are thinking, “Old Don is going to get some strange looks when he asks, ‘What aisle do I find percolators?'” Yes, I did, but I went exploring and sure enough, there they were on the bottom shelf tucked away as if to say, “We’ll be here awhile.”
Now, wife Mary makes me a great cup of coffee every morning — perked and straight up and down black.
Don Hill
Seymour
