Likes: Coffee

Coffee is wonderful!

Perfectly roasted, brown little beans...have you ever eaten a chocolate covered coffee bean?

I love coffee - I used to steal sips of my mom's coffee any chance I had.  She drank hers with just a little milk. When she found out I was sipping she bought me coffee flavored candies - Coffee Nips, actually.  She always said "coffee stunts your growth - look what happened to me!"  But, my coffee obsession started honest enough.  It runs in the family.

One of my favorite memories of my Grandpa Nolff - my mom's dad is of him sitting at the end of their kitchen table having coffee in his white cup with the blue stripe - it was a heavy cup and there was only one but, I remember him adding his sugar and then with his three remaining fingers he'd hold the spoon and stir "Tink, tink, tink", the spoon on the sides of that old mug.  Grandma made coffee in an old percolator on the stove, and as kids, we were allowed to drink water or coffee. 

My grandparents are both passed on but, I do miss the smell of coffee percolating in Grandma's kitchen.  There is no other way to brew coffee with that same aroma.  Once in great while I'll find that smell of Grandma's kitchen on a cold winter morning. We used to spend the night on the farm once in a while but, staying in winter was my favorite!  We all slept upstairs - except Grandma, she had her own room off the kitchen and we weren't allowed in it!  Grandpa slept upstairs too and had his bedroom on the left, the girls room was on the right.  If you got up in the night, you might see a tiny orange glow from Grandpa's bed, he sometimes would wake up and smoke a cigarette in the night.  He didn't say much, he'd just kind of grunt and we'd say "Just going to the pot.", and he'd grunt again. We'd always check out the ashtray and find all these cigarettes with a burned filter - he'd lit the wrong end in the night.  Lucky he didn't burn the house down!

The mornings there were the best!  We always, always tried to get up and downstairs before Grandpa went out to feed the horses.  I remember waking up, sniffing the air for his cigarettes and coffee - if you didn't smell either of them fresh - you might have a chance!  I don't know why we didn't check his bed - his room was wide open but, we'd race down the stairs - bust through the door, and you better catch it before it banged on the wall - or you'd be sure to get it from Grandma, round the corner and through the living room to see the kitchen light was on and there he was sitting in his chair with that spoon in his cup "tink, tink, tink".  And he'd say "Coffee's on.  I'll finish this cup and go feed, hurry up, get dressed if you're commin' along."  Talk about disappointment!  Sometimes, I went out to feed with him, sometimes not.  I liked the smell of the hay on a cold morning mixing with the crystals from your breath and watching that little man and his white Santa Claus beard hauling bales of hay to feed his big horses.  He always let me feed them their oats.

He was a man of few words.  He spoke to us kids mostly in 'hmm', 'uh-huh', 'yeah' and occasionally a "git the hell outta there dammit!' but, he was gentle and he was kind.  I loved when he'd pour us a little cup of coffee with a lot of sugar and a lot of cream after coming in from the barn.  My mom would always say "Dad!" and he'd chuckle and put the cup in front of us anyway - "Kids gotta get warm on the inside 'Eeen!".  He was a hard working man and he was a tough man. He was a good man with a heart of pure gold.  He passed away the fall after I graduated high school and Grandma's kitchen was never the same.

No matter how old I grow to be, I'll always remember his half smile when we'd come in the door while he stirred his coffee "tink, tink, tink".