Tag Archives: 1970s

My Coffee Ritual

Originally published in the Bookends Review in August 2023.

I have an unhealthy obsession with the act of brewing coffee in my Mr. Coffee electric drip coffee machine. Why do I prefer this method to a single-serving Keurig or buying coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks on the way to work?

For one, nostalgia tugs at me, as I remember my deceased parents and how they taught me how to make coffee in the 1970s. When I was young, my dad worked as a salesman at the local Sears store, while my mom started her banking career on the teller line. They were low-income earners, but they never scrimped on the staple of coffee. There was always a canister of coffee and an electric drip coffee maker sitting on the Formica countertop in our kitchen (and in their separate residences after they divorced).

I remember my mother wearing a worried expression on her face every morning as she sat at the kitchen table, her fingers pressed to her forehead as she smoked Salem Light cigarettes and drank coffee from a light blue ceramic mug. She needed coffee to start the day, as if sipping the hot liquid prepared her to endure the responsibilities and financial burdens she confronted.

And while tastes vary, my parents instructed me on how to make a decent blend in the coffee pot. The rules were rigid; if you flouted them, the coffee came out too weak or too strong, and you would need to dump it in the sink and start all over again. And we couldn’t waste coffee in my house. The measurements were three scoops of coffee for every six cups of water, four scoops for eight cups of water—and, if we had company—the ratio went to five and ten or six and twelve.

As an adult, I’ve adjusted this formula to make a stronger blend, but I still relish the quotidian ritual of standing in my kitchen and preparing the coffee maker at night so it’s ready to go when I wake up in the morning.

I love measuring the water, tucking a paper filter in the filter basket, scooping out ground coffee—either Folgers or Maxwell House—smelling the aroma, noting the sound of the metal scoop digging in the plastic canister, dumping the coffee in the filter, and closing the lid.

And my Mr. Coffee coffee maker offers a no-frills, analog, tactile coffee-making experience. There’s no clock, no built-in alarm, no digital displays, no voice activation. The process requires exactness and following an ordered progression. The steps are simple: add water, add coffee, plug in, and turn on.

But this coffee-making ritual has a deeper significance, as you must wait for the coffee to brew. It’s not instantaneous, and the process reminds me of sex. There’s a buildup and a finish as the coffee maker hisses and spits and completes its cycle with a flourish of guttural sounds.

But I also draw a connection between coffee and death. Every time I scoop the coffee and drop it in the filter basket, I am reminded of my mortality. My mind reflects on burial scenes in movies, where family members toss shovelfuls of dirt on top of a coffin containing the body of a loved one. I think, “How many more pots of coffee will I make before I die? When will I take the last sip of coffee brewed in my kitchen?”

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Complaining to Santa Claus

While watching the film Red One (starring Dwayne Johnson and J.K. Simmons) recently, a childhood memory connected to Christmas and Santa Claus popped into my head. When Santa’s massive, modern North Pole complex appeared on screen, I mentioned to my wife, Pamela, that my parents had taken my sister, Lisa, and me to Santa’s Workshop, a theme park in North Pole, New York, up in the Adirondacks, one summer when we were small kids in the early 1970s.

My sister Lisa and me when we were small.

When we embarked on the family trip, I was around five years old, and my parents were still married. My ears plugged as our little green station wagon (if I recall correctly) navigated the road, climbing higher into the mountains. Along the way, we stopped for a pancake breakfast at a roadside diner. After hopping out of the car, I observed the ring of surrounding blue mountains, felt the warm sunshine on my neck, and smelled the clean outdoor air.

Once we arrived at the park, I couldn’t wait to see Santa’s reindeer. The animals were housed in individual stalls in a barn, and their nameplates identified them as Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph.

Photo Credit: North Pole, NY

But a scary moment followed when I left the barn and entered a petting zoo. An angry white goat chased me in the ring, nipping at my heels and chomping at my butt. I fell and became terrified the goat would chew my face off. My father laughed, picked me up, and shook off the dust that had covered my blue jeans.

An age appropriate image for the story.

Later, when it was my time to sit on Santa’s lap, I said to the older man wearing the fake white beard and red suit, “Listen, Santa, I have to tell you something.”

“Go on, young man,” he said.

“One of your goats was not very nice. He chased me and tried to bite me.”

“Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that,” Santa said. “I’ll go to the barn later and have a word with him. I promise you that won’t happen again.”

“Thank you, Santa,” I said and then proceeded to give him my Christmas wishes.

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The North Pole visit was one of our last vacations as a nuclear family. My parents would divorce a few years later.

Now, when I work on nonfiction and memoir projects, I find it mysterious and blessed how one little thing—such as seeing the Red One—can trigger a sense of recall, starting the movie projector running within your personal memory vault. It’s like all the scenes from our past are still tucked inside, and we just need a way to access them. For me, the key is trying to remember the sensory details from a particular incident or time period.

I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

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