Coffeetoo

As I get older, I find that the poignant feeling of nostalgia is becoming a regular companion. I suppose that 74 years of experiences … tastes and smells and what Jackson Browne calls the fragments of the songs carried down the wind from some radio … give me ample opportunity to touch some nearly forgotten moment.  I remember as my Dad was pushing into his eighties he became a sentimental old guy who would tear up regularly over memories. I know now that those weren’t usually tears of sadness but of gratitude for a good life.  This morning, as I was getting ready to go to the park, I had such a moment.

I do not go lightly into the park. I bring a briefcase full of electronics, pads and writing instruments. I bring a camera, and today, a light lunch, quickly assembled in our kitchen. I bring a large vacuum cup, usually filled with Diet Coke from Mickie Dee’s but today I didn’t want to stop so it was full of lime fizzie water from Trader Joe’s.  As I loaded my paraphernalia into my car, I remembered that I had a fresh pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen, so I went back for my travel cup. I’d left it upstairs, and as I retrieved it from the vanity, my wife Muri, said, Coffee, too? And instantly I was a child again, in my Mom’s kitchen. Dad was having a cup of coffee and I was having a Coffeetoo.  No, my Mom didn’t give me coffee.   She used to stir some Eclipse Coffee Syrup in a glass of milk for me.   The first time she made it for me, she said, Buddy, would you like some coffee, too? And from that day on, it was always known as Coffeetoo.  These days, I see kids coming out of Starbucks with their Moms carrying five buck concoctions of I don’t know what.   But that can’t hold a candle to my memory of a Coffeetoo with Dad, made especially for me by Mom.  And, by the way, nothing topped that off like a candy cigarette on the way to school.

Have a great weekend.

 

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Tags: feeling older, humor, nostalgia

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