Coffee Snobs

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   Thank goodness the holidays are behind us. Now I can finally enjoy some of the gifts that I received at Christmas. I've worn my new Carhartts, and the insulated Xtra- Tuff boots. I'm listening to some music that I downloaded from I tunes, I've got my cards for medical and dental insurance, commercial fishing licenses, Fred Meyers Awards card, Costco card, NRA card and a few others I can't recall right now, all safely stored in my new billfold, and I've already watched several movies that I received for Christmas. I was the happy recipient of more than a few packs of hoochies, which I can't use right now, but will in the near future.  I do however have a lot of use for one of my favorite beverages, coffee.  When I was a young lad back in Ohio my best friend, Don, and I used to go up to the Big Boy  restaurant, plop our skinny behinds in a booth and order coffee. I think we were about twelve at the time and in our juvenile minds, drinking coffee was quite a grown up thing to do. The waitresses were always gracious, returning time and again to refill our cups. Of course we were far too wimpy to drink it without copious amounts of cream and sugar. At the time a cup of coffee was ten cents. The grand total for our multiple cups was a whopping twenty cents- a bargain even in that day. Being the generous fellows we were, I believe we whipped out a quarter and told the waitress to keep the change. We probably used two dollars worth of sugar in the hour or so we spent tying up the booth. Of course the poor waitresses had to contend with the mountain of sugar packets that were littering the table, plus the spilled coffee, to say nothing of the lustful glares of adolescent boys. Frankly, I 'm surprised we weren't banned from the place. However, we weren't, and for a season we enjoyed our Saturday morning coffee at the Big Boy. At the time I believe the restaurant was serving Continental Coffee, or perhaps it was Chock Full of Nuts, either way, it was delightful. My dad used to drink Maxwell House- good to the last drop. Back in "the old days" there weren't any gourmet coffees available to the common man. You drank whatever the supermarket carried and you were happy with it. While I was on the farm I believe the coffee of choice was Hills Brothers. Now, much to my children's dismay, we drink (gasp) Folgers. I can usually buy it fairly cheap at Costco, so I stock up on three or four cans at a time. I've yet to have received a can of Folgers, or any other national brand of coffee that I know of for Christmas. This year my granddaughter gave me some cowboy coffee- Morning Light. It says it's  Charlie Russell Blend. I guess he was the original cowboy. I'll have to take their word on it. I'm not sure what cowboys know about brewing coffee, but it tastes pretty good. My daughter gave us some Kauai Coffee. The bag says it's single origin estate grown.Whatever that means. It's grown in Hawiaai though,so I guess that's good. I have another bag of coffee from the Big Island of Hawaii. It says it's 100% Kona coffee. It's sold by the Mulvadi Corporation. Sounds like they ought to sell fancy liquors or clothes. It just goes to show how far we've come in our appreciation of coffee. Last but not least, I've got a bag of Starbucks. Probably the name most associated with gourmet coffee in America.  This particular bag is Colombian medium roast. I don't see a picture of Juan Valdez,the Colombian coffee dude on the bag, but maybe they didn't have room for him, with all the other advertising. Just a bit of trivia, the original Juan Valdez's real name was Jose Duval. I' don't know what happened to him. Maybe he didn't like donkeys.  The guy playing Juan now is Carlos Sanchez.  Seems like a nice guy, but I haven't seen him for awhile. Anyway, I appreciate the fancy coffees. The bottom line is though, unlike my kids, I'm not a coffee snob. I'm perfectly content with my Folgers, so next year, if you want to stick some in a fancy sack and give it to me, I'll be just as happy. Meanwhile, drink up! Or as they say in coffee drinking circles, Grab life by the beans! Ooooh, sounds painful.