Old timer’s coffee

We had a get together at Church the other day celebrating a couple events in the lives of some who attend and the ladies had made coffee in one of those 50 or 60 cup aluminum percolators. I wouldn’t have a clue how much coffee to add to make a decent cup of coffee. Most of the time I make my coffee a cup at a time. When I drink that one cup I have to make another cup. But there is also a 12 cup coffee brewer at church which heats the water a squirt at a time which drips down on the coffee grounds and as it filters through the grounds it makes coffee. Slow is the name of this coffee pot. Maybe even “Really Slow”.

Percolators were the thing back when I was growing up with most being electric. They percolated the water up to the top where it ran down through the grounds. This percolation system just kept going and going till the water got hot enough to shut the coffee pot off. And if you had put enough coffee grounds in the little basket up top you had a boiling hot pot of coffee that would float a horseshoe. Sometimes the old timers would put a couple dashes of salt in the grounds to kind of smooth out the coffee. Some drank it straight black. I think Mom did. Dad put some real cow’s cream in his and a scoop of sugar. Now that was good coffee to a kid growing up around cookies. I can almost taste a chocolate chip cookie Mom had made dipped in Dad’s coffee!

Cups back when I was a kid were pretty much always glass or a real thick kind of white something. Maybe ceramic! Not even sure what they were made of. Most were heavy and most of them would maybe hold maybe 8 to 12 ounces which was a lot of coffee like the old timers made it. Most of them had a single ring where you put your pointer finger into. You could look down into the coffee and you darn sure couldn’t see the bottom of the cup. If one was going to have a cup of coffee it had better be coffee.

There was an event at Church on Saturday and one of the gals had started the 12 cup pot of coffee, the real slow one. When the 12 cups has squirted up and onto the grounds and it’s all done it is a decent pot of coffee. I was needing a cup a little faster than “slow poke” could produce so I stole the first cup through the grounds. I put a little creamer in my cup of coffee and it didn’t even turn the coffee a lighter color. The coffee was thick. It was good. Some think that drinking a real strong cup of coffee makes them kind

of like superman or He Man. It doesn’t. All it means is you like strong coffee. I like strong coffee up to a point. But on the other hand I can sit down and drink a cup of coffee where I can almost see the bottom of the cup through the coffee and I can enjoy it. It’s who I’m having coffee with that makes the difference.

I have a few close friends that time spent with them is precious. We don’t get together all that often so I treasure the time we can spend together. But at the same time I enjoy having a slow cup with about anyone. Matter of fact I’d like to sit down with you and visit over a coffee or tea or even water.

“What you say” we lay down our disagreements over politics and religion and taxes and global warming and electric cars and simply enjoy some time together? Let’s leave our cell phones in the car or pickup, if you are my kind of guy or gal, and enjoy a few moments together.

I guess I’m kind of tired of everyone being disagreeable over pettiness. Let’s agree to be agreeable and get along!