Just a story, I hope you enjoy it -C
I struggled to brew a pot of coffee for my mom growing up, and all she ever drank was Folgers. For some reason finding a coffee filter, scooping the grounds, pouring tap water into the back of the brewer and flipping the switch really challenged my problem solving skills. I made up for this lack by at least being a good excuse for her to drink it.. I was the Tasmanian Devil of our home. Baby steps, right?
In recent years she’s switched to Dunkin Donuts and adds a bit of cinnamon to the grounds, and also likes an occasional mocha. She fell in love with mochas while vacationing in Mexico. To this very day she gets up at 4am to start brewing. If your pride won’t let your mouth say “I love you” to a woman so kind and selfless, you’re a fool to not at least get her a refill. I wouldn’t even put it past her to take preference to the refill.
She’s the youngest of four, the only girl. Her oldest brother lives in Italy.. or France; nobody can say for sure but we think he likes it. Her other two brothers are still in Tulsa, where I grew up. The older, a flight attendant for several decades and the younger, a firefighter for his own decades.
They have also been long-term business partners. Selling popcorn balls as kids out of a wagon in West Texas for nickels or less, they eventually went in on a donut shop, a bar, and even a carwash. They share all the right qualities and compliment one another as brothers do. One of them is a great listener and the other, a great story teller. Their namesake has a laugh I can hear in my head, and I’d be remiss to leave out the fact that they were always so good to my own brother and I growing up. It’s a pleasure to even think about them.
When they would come over, it was normal for them to always have a Lone Star Beer with dinner. Us kids would spend hours trying to solve all the puzzles on the caps. Lone Star was smart to put those there, as it was always our pleasure to grab another beer for them so long as they’d give us the cap.
Like clockwork it was a fresh pot of coffee. Often at 8…9…10 o’clock at night. You put my mother, that flight attendant and firefighter in the same room and you’d be wiser to put your money on a pot to be brewed than to bet that a smoker likes cigarettes. It wasn’t just likely, it was inevitable.
The three of them never needed an excuse to stay late in the living room chatting as far as my mother was concerned. They’d recall stories about their own uncles, Kansas, Texas, farms, road trips, crap cars, mean girls, their own mom, their step dad, different jobs, politics, and all the good, bad and ugly of life. These people love each other all the way. It just seemed like a good unspoken reason, a pot of coffee, to sit and talk a little longer. Even as a kid I knew nobody would leave until it was empty, AND that a second pot was never off the table. That’s the culture in my home.
I did like the smell. As much as I could not STAND the taste, the smell was always very pleasing. Over my life I suppose the scent has earned some nostalgia. Coffee just smells like home. The cheaper the better, maybe.
In college, I was blessed to live in a house with 10 other guys. There were 2 bathrooms, 6 bedrooms, 11 guys, 1 dog (two separate times), and even a lizard named Rocky. Rocky was buried outback next to the trampoline that was stolen by some of the other strangers we loved across town. The lizard was the only roommate we ever lost, though we weren’t without our close calls.
Rent was cheaper than a free ticket to hell and the community was unrivaled. You haven’t lived until you’ve been iced in with 10 other guys with more whiskey than you know what to do with and a homemade bunk bed with no ladder. We also had an Xbox and NCAA 14. We lived like kings.
Our kitchen sink was rarely empty of dirty dishes, and there were definitely some structural issues to the house. Some of those, we regretfully caused (and technically fixed, shoutout W & SJ for the save). It always had some smell we were trying to cover up, some of the windows were broken, and I don’t think anybody had a key. It was just always unlocked.
That house took really good care of me, even when we didn’t take great care of it. I had the first cup of coffee I ever almost liked in that house. My good friend W introduced me to my first pour over. I had never seen anything to this level of specificity go into a cup of Coffee. He measured the weight to a single bean, ground them to the precise coarseness, and heated some water to an exact degree (I still didn’t know how to brew the folgers).
This became a regular occurrence – and often late at night. I am not my mom nor her brothers, they’d actually be able to sleep after their midnight oil. I wouldn’t sleep until the next day. The time spent with W and our friends still sits invaluable in my heart. He only had a hand grinder, and we’d even have time trials to see who could grind a batch the fastest.
Even though I still didn’t love the taste, the act of drinking it late was a neural pathway home for a moment. That’s still worth everything for me.
Years later, after moving to Utah, I got a job at a coffee shop in a town that for the most part hates coffee (or only likes it quietly). I was broke, working 60 hours a week between two jobs to make $800 rent and save nothing else. It was a particularly low point in life and money was the least of my concern, but I still needed to eat.
In all of my hours at this shop I realized I was the richest guy I knew. I still think that now. This is where I truly learned to love a cup of oil black coffee. The people I worked with are among a short list of friends I still have from that town. Beyond them it’s a bit of a tight ship, but that’s just life. Love is hard sometimes, isn’t it?
I’ve had a lot of jobs. Never have I been so radically different than my coworkers, and nor more joyously inclined to say yes to the invites outside of work than at this coffee shop.
You don’t have to twist my arm to have a beer with you, but with these folks? I was doing the majority of the arm twisting. I loved spending time with them – and still do. “A Straight White Christian, a Lesbian Latter-Day Saint, and a 6’2 Brazilian Tennis Player walk into a bar…” No joke, these are the nights I replay on the hard days. We’d often close up the shop, skip mopping to buy some time, and walk a block closer to the mountains to share a beer or four and close the bar, too.
I never left with any laughter left to give. Sure, sometimes I deposited my tips directly into my tab. Sue me. I don’t regret it at all, no matter how broke I was. I was rich. We would spend countless hours talking about faith, politics, family, relationships, work drama, music, life goals, our regrets and our hopes – nothing was off the table.
I know our love for one another was authentic because it was so charitable in spite of our differences. There wasn’t a compromise, and I don’t think that’s bad. We had great charity, I think that was the biggest lesson I ever learned from them.
Living in that city was hard, but laughter always smelled like a cup of coffee.
I live a bit further north now. They say my house looks like a saloon and I agree. I have a shop I like on 9th, and they know my name and I know theirs.
The coffee is bottomless for an extra buck. It’s a spot where I’ve run into friends and made friends out of strangers. I’ve shared coffee with girlfriends now exes, yet the smell of my drink brings up only the good times.
I’ll take my parents when they come around, my mom for the coffee and my dad for their tacos, tortillas made just like those of another friend of ours.
I’m sure we’ll talk about what Utah’s like, and the things of Tulsa I miss the most, but I don’t think I’ll ever regret time spent with a hot cup that smells like home.
Copper Thoughts 