This week I came face-to-face with a genuine dilemma. I had
several meetings across town and for some reason I miscalculated
and ended up with a 2-1/2 hour gap between meetings. I hate to
waste time, but if I drove back to my office, I would simply
have to return to my meeting later and with the cost of gas
these days, one cannot be too cautious.
You know gas is getting high when it costs more to fill up the
car than the car is actually worth. The most valuable thing in
my car is in my gas tank.
I remedied the situation by stopping in a small coffee shop for
cup of Joe. As far as I'm concerned, there is no bad time to
have a cup of coffee, in spite of the price. I ordered my coffee
and when the waitress brought it to me, I began to think about
coffee. Why did God give us coffee?
Then my mind went back to my grandfather, whose great gift to me
was a love of coffee. Nobody loved coffee more. I remember one
of his favorite quotes, "You can always tell a man by the coffee
drinks."
Anathema to my grandfather was the idea of instant coffee. No
man, in his opinion, would ever drink anything of the kind. "If
a man would drink instant coffee," my grandfather perked,
"there's no telling what else he would do. Never trust a man who
drinks instant coffee."
Making coffee was an art form to my grandfather. There was a
right way and a wrong way to make coffee, and he always insisted
on the right way. Of course, the right way was the way he made
coffee.
In grandfather's kitchen was an old wood-burning cook stove. My
grandmother cooked meals on this ancient apparatus for more than
50 years. Sure, she eventually got an electric stove but it was
more for show than anything else.
On this old-fashioned stove, my grandfather brewed his famous
mud broth. He never allowed my grandmother to make the brew; it
was his job, which he took seriously.
Once for his birthday we all chipped in and bought him an
electric coffee pot. I had never seen my grandfather so mad.
When he saw what it was he would not even take it out of the box.
He had strong ideas about coffee and how it should be brewed and
woe be to the person who contradicted his ideas.
Grandfather always kept a fire in the old wood cook stove and on
the back of the stove he kept his coffee pot, a large 2-gallon
pot — one of those old-fashioned percolators long since gone out
of style. The coffee was always on, and no matter when you
stopped in to see him, he always had "fresh" coffee brewing.
When I say "fresh" I need to explain. Actually, the coffee was
only fresh on Sunday. On Saturday night, he routinely emptied
the coffee pot and prepared fresh coffee for Sunday morning.
He had an old coffee grinder and ground the coffee beans on
Saturday night. He put some other things in the coffee, I have
never figured out what. One thing I know he put in was a crushed
eggshell. What it did to his coffee I have no idea, but
grandfather was sure it was an important ingredient.
The freshly-ground coffee beans were put in, the pot filled with
fresh water and set on the back of the stove to slowly perk.
This coffee would last the entire week. The coffee was so strong
on Sunday that if it didn't wake you in the morning, you were
dead.
In fact, cousin Ernie died on a Sunday afternoon, so my
grandfather tells the story, and one sip of his black coffee
roused him and he lived seven more years, which was unfortunate
for grandfather, as he had to support him.
Before retiring each evening my grandfather took care of his
coffee. He would freshly grind a few coffee beans, sprinkle it
on top of the old coffee grounds, and then add a newly crushed
eggshell. Then he would refill the coffee pot with water.
His coffee percolated 24/7 and by Saturday it was so strong you
needed a half-cup of sugar just to drink one cup. It was thick
enough to use as syrup on your pancakes, but so strong, it
dissolved your pancakes before you could eat them.
My grandmother once tried washing the coffee pot. When my
grandfather saw her, he became furious, "Never wash that coffee
pot," he spouted, "you'll ruin its character and a coffee pot
needs a lot of character to make good coffee."
When my grandfather died, I looked at his old black coffee pot
and discovered two things. One, the original color was blue. And
two, although it was originally a 2-gallon pot, it only could
take three quarts of water. The "character," so important to my
grandfather, had built up so much over the years its capacity
was diminished.
In pondering my grandfather, I thought about my Heavenly Father
and His gifts. The Bible puts it this way; "Every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the
Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning." (James 1:17 KJV.)
I really don't know why God gave us coffee but I do know God's
character is of such a nature that it never diminishes His
ability to bless me each day.
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