Quechee (I s'pose you might look it up)

“On that long drive outta' town I s'pose there was only one thing that poor bastard Devlin was thinkin', and I don't s'pose he was wantin' to think very much of it, if truth be known. Earlier in the day he prob'ly wanted to just pull that old Crown Vic over on the side of the road and have himself a good long cry, but as it was he just kept driving until he found himself a Tim Horton's in Portland. Look at that, will you, that kind of rhymes. Horton's in Portland.

Well anyhow he just kept driving that big old Crown Vic down the road and long on before he ever got to Portland he picked himself up a hitchhiker who looked none too dangerous – just a thin, watery lookin' man who walked like he had a club foot and whose face was set off by a big ol' mole o'er his right eye. Damned thing had a tuft o' black hairs growin' right out of the center, too. Wicked filthy, it looked. The whole of the club-footed, mole-faced hitchhiker looked a good bit wicked filthy, in fact. Didn't matter no how, as Devlin picked him up anyway and told him he was headed to Portland for business or some such lie.

Devlin thought he was gonna' take 89 down to Manchester and then across to catch 95 to take it on up to Portland, but he decided right around Lebanon to just keep goin' east, and the next thing you know he was stoppin' for gas just outside of Meredith. That club-footed hitchhiker got out to stretch his legs a bit while Devlin filled up the tank. Bastard of a man that he was, he went and got himself a coffee and never thought to ask the hitchhiker if he wanted anything. I think it's only the right and decent thing to do when you got a club-footed, mole-faced hitchhiker in your car...you really should offer a coffee to the poor guy, don't you think? Anyhow, Devlin never thought to do that, no how, and he just went and got himself a coffee with an extra cream thrown in, seein' as how he didn't get any real lunch that day, outside of a hahd'-boiled egg.

When he stepped out of that gas station convenience store, sippin' that coffee with the extra cream, I tell you, old Devlin, he got the scare of his life. There was that club-footed fool leanin' up against the Crown Vic, smokin' a cigarette while the fellah' next to him was gassin' up. Good God but Devlin turned pale. He rushed at the hitchhiker and hit him like a professional tackle, I tell you. Knocked that fool for a loop and popped what he thought was a cigarette right out of his mouth. He gave that club-footed, mole-faced fool the thrashin' of his life. 'Beat him near half dead, and the gas station attendant had to come out and pull old Devlin offa' him. The hitchhiker was bloody, all right. It looked as though Devlin had broken his nose and popped out a right couple of the poor bastard's teeth. Devlin had just gotten' to takin out his frustrations of that lousy day on the poor cripple, and before anyone could call the cops, Devlin was back in the Crown Vic, spillin' coffee all over himself and speeding on down the road, this time not stoppin' till he made that Tim Horton's I was tellin' you about.

He sat there and tried to eat a cruller, but it was no use. That damned cruller just kept getting' caught in his throat and the coffee didn't do any good about washin' it down. He cried, all right. Cried more about the stick of chewing gum he had realized aftah' it was too late that the club-footed, mole-faced hitchhiker was puttin' into his mouth and poor Devlin thought was a smoke. Damn fool. Damn fool bastard. I guess sometimes you end up cryin' over things you don't expect to be cryin' about.

Macaroons and Sprayvy

“I had to laugh when you told me it was a macaroon,” exhaled a nervous Sheila Day.  “I thought perhaps it might have been a windmill cookie, and for goodness sakes, NO ONE eats windmill cookies anymore.”  Neither did anyone sharing her public space in the small city park take note of the macaroons.

Sheila Day outweighed her companion by a good 200 pounds – those pounds being mostly comprised of adipose tissue that very likely had been placed upon her swollen frame by a good number of macaroons and the ubiquitous windmill cookies.  Eat them furtively, Sheila – no one sees you.  Hide in your Sheila-forsaken closet and cram those windmill cookies into your mouth.  “Wrap your rosies around them,” as my father would have said had he ever known you.  Sheila wore that hot-pink jumpsuit with an attitude.  It would forever be 1983 for Sheila, and hot pink jumpsuits would forever be the rage.  As classy as the paint-spatter mini-skirt she could no longer fit into.

“No, they’re just macaroons, and I like ‘em.  But I like windmill cookies, too,” replied a forever-scared Tony.  Tony had been scared since 1983 – the year in which Sheila was eternally residing.  It had something to do with the threat of the Soviet Union’s missiles, unemployment, the second coming and that sprayable gravy in a can that Tony was never sure actually existed.  Tony was genderless.  That is, Tony never knew if Tony was a man or a woman.  In 1982 Tony had been taken to the doctor in the middle of Tony’s 9^th grade year (freshman? freshtony?), and Tony’s family doctor had to finally admit that something had gone really, really wrong.  Tony had no gender…no discernable sexual organs.   Tony’s anatomy below the belt resembled that of a G.I. Joe or a perhaps that of a Barbie…somewhere kind of in between, in fact.  To cover all the bases, Tony tried out for the football team and the pom-pon squad that year, being selected for neither.  Tony then just settled into life as a member of the forensics team and a bit-part in the spring performance of “Equus.”  Life was never quite the same after the diagnosis, but finding an open changing room at the local Fashion Bug was a whole lot easier.

“Well, if I ever saw anyone eating a windmill cookie, I'd have to just laugh aloud.”  Sheila reached for a macaroon, and nearly tipped off the park bench as she leaned forward and her center of gravity shifted.  “My dad used to eat windmill cookies and he would dunk ‘em in his coffee, until they got all soggy and soft.  I remember the little chunks of windmill cookie in his coffee cup when I would do the dishes.  I hated that.”

“I hate coffee,” shot back Tony.  “You can stick your coffee up your ass.  And leave my macaroons alone.”

“Geez…why so touchy?  It’s just a cookie.  I’m not even drinking coffee, anyway, it’s a mocha.  Geez.”

“Well, just don’t eat all my macaroons.”

“I won’t.  Now tell me about your new job.  You like it?”

Tony just kind of stared off into space and ran the soft bits of macaroon between tongue and palate.  Tony could feel the tender little bits of coconut once the rest of the cookie had dissolved.  For a second it was the late 1970’s, and Tony was in grade school again, eating a macaroon in the school lunch room, thinking about the episode of “Welcome Back Kotter” that was on last night, wondering who would get picked first when they chose up sides for kickball after lunch.  Tony never got picked first.  Hell, Tony barely ever got picked.  Tony would end up watching the kickball game from the sidelines half of the time, half-heartedly watching, and with the other half of the heart thinking about going home to the family dog after school and playing out in the backyard that Tony’s mother had insisted be turned into a concrete topiary playground.  Rotten concrete gazelles eternally staring at concrete gnomes who in turn stared eternally at anthropomorphic concrete pigs.  A great yard to come home to.

“So you like it? Do you?” Sheila prodded Tony with her plastic drinking straw, and left a tiny droplet of mocha on Tony’s arm.  “Sorry, whoops,” offered a genuinely repentant Sheila.

“Well, if I didn’t have to talk to anyone, it would be a whole lot better.”

“But Tony, you’re a morgue attendant.”

“Yeah.  I know,” Tony replied, “except we prefer the title ‘Post-Human Mass Storage and Retrieval Specialist.’  Now keep your filthy hands off my macaroons.”

Across the street from the small park a group of school children were just beginning a game of kickball.

And a Little Plastic Knife

As if the darkened skies were not enough, there was a sprinkling of rain in the air as well. David walked down that smudgy old main street of that smudgy old town that he called home and wondered how long those smudgy old buildings had been there. “The Midwest is no place for dreamers,” his uncle John used to say. What a fool Uncle John was – the entire world is no place for dreamers, for dreams always come to an end. We wake up. Everyone wakes up. We all wake up and we are forced to see what the real world is like. Is it a cup of coffee? Is it bacon and eggs? Might it rather be a carcinogenic, processed sausage and cheese biscuit monstrosity from the fourth ring of hell, served up to you in your car, piping hot and handed over by a bored, sullen teenager with bad skin and a pierced cheek and lip? Mornings are always a cold start, for it means the dreams come to an end.

“The dreams come to an end,” said David aloud, as he continued his walk down that smudgy old main street. It looked smudgy to him, he thought, really smudgy. Like a watercolor that you walk by in an art museum because you are bored and do not want to look at another watercolor. You just want to press on to the masterpieces that you know are in the next gallery...just around the corner...just beyond your view...just out of reach. “Don't wanna' look at it anymore...tired.” He had thought this once while walking through the Uffizi, and another time while walking through the Tretyakov. Now he said it aloud as he walked down the smudgy little main street of his home town. Where was the brochure to tell him how to get to the exit? He was tired of looking at this particular gallery.

“I would like a bagel,” David thought.

His mind drifted back to a bagel he had bought from a street vendor in midtown Manhattan several years ago. It was an “everything” bagel, and he could still dredge up from the recesses of his memory the feeling of the poppy seed stuck in the front of his teeth. He was scared to smile. He had been scared that day, too, several years ago. No smiles. No laughs. Just an everything bagel, he thought. Just some cream cheese, maybe, to go on top of it. Just a small cup of coffee. Just a walk through Central park with his wife. Just a smile. No more smudgy art gallery. No bastard art gallery guard to look at you with his greasy, sweaty face, looking at you like some kind of greasy, sweaty gargoyle who wants to take your everything bagel away from you and shove it in his own gaping maw, filling that greasy, sweaty belly.

Home again. Coffee in the percolator. The dog is wagging his tail. David's wife would be home in a couple of hours. He smiled. The skies looked a little less smudgy.

Chantilly Truck Stop

Such a mad, mad dash I did just take across part of this beautiful country – these beautifully united States of America. So open and so dry-looking were the fields of Indiana, along with the crazy congestion of her largest city. So open, once again were the roads across Ohio, though they empty out on her eastern border into a land of excitement and promise and rolling hills that presage something more to come. West Virginia – once across her panhandle, once right up her entire length...what a place. My friend Ernie who grew up there just laughed and said “almost heaven” right after I said “West Virginia.” The two seem to go together ever since that John Denver song. He was right. Those ancient hills and seams of coal and smoky little hollows are almost on another plane of existence.

Virgina, Virginia, Virginia. The Old Dominion. When you drive through her in the early morning hours, you can see why Lee and his boys fought so hard to keep out an invading foreign army. She is sweet and lovely, like a beautiful southern belle at a cotillion, and any red-blooded American man would want to fight to defend her honor against any indignity. That long stripe of Interstate 81 running along her western backbone is nearer to heaven, perhaps, than West Virginia, although Virginia cries deeper, harder tears than West Virginia ever dreamed.

And there, deep below the tail of the Old Dominion, I found a small hillock in North Carolina, nestled within foggy, foggy mountains that reached up and up and up. There I paused and breathed in the fresh North Carolina air. I felt the cool raindrops on my face. I smelled the woodsmoke on the breeze. An elderly lady in a tiny thrift store told me “we don't get verruh mannuh visituhs from youah pahts 'round heah.” I am sure she was right. I felt ashamed, a little bit. I stood there in my chinos, tweed jacket and sweater vest, and I could almost feel a black Hardee hat sitting on my head. I am sure she never noticed.

The coffee was horrible all the way throughout the journey, and I was reminded once again that the American diner is getting harder and harder to find. McDonald's and BK have just about driven out the quaint little places called “EAT” as well as the ones called “GOOD FOOD” that used to litter the landscape. America is changing. America has changed. But if you look hard enough, she is still there, in her foggy mornings, her Blue Ridge Mountains, her Appalachians, her Shenandoah Valley. She sleeps quietly in a tiny holler' where wood smoke wafts out of that little shack and the coffee is just now beginning to perk.

Almost heaven.

Taps Will Blow Tomorrow for an Old Soldier...

...and so I am frantically racing east across I-70 and I-79 and I-68 and I-just don't know anymore, taking in the landscape and fueling myself with cheap coffee.  I hope to make it to Arlington National Cemetery and say goodbye, before turning the rented car around and heading west again.  I pray the coffee gets better in Virginia.

Musketball?

Have you ever had one of those days?  The kind of day that finds you sitting quietly in your armchair and suddenly a terrific din is heard outside.  You might stand up and walk to the window, in order that you might see the source of this noise.


My word!  Heavens! Crikey!


Look at that, will you...a tiny parade filing past your house.  Right here on quiet, peaceful Juniper Lane!


It is not the clown with the bleeding head wound marching by that scares you, as much as does the pack of trained Pomeranians.  The little devils have teeth that have been filed to razor-sharp points, and their backs are shaved (you wonder about the clown's back - is it shaved as neatly and as cleanly as are the backs of the demonic Pomeranians?).  The Pomeranians jump and twirl and stand up on their hind legs, all at the behest of the woman in the top hat, it would appear.  Looking as dangerous as Ecstasy-fueled Euro-trash in her tuxedo jacket and fishnet, she shouts in guttural Slovak at the demonic Pomeranians, and lashes at them with a tiny, tiny whip.  "Nadol, hnusné beštie!  Nadol, hnusné beštie,"  she cries.


The diminutive whip cracks.  Pomeranians growl. "Nadol, hnusné beštie!"


Mrs. Remke pokes her head out the door.  Your neighbor is obviously concerned, but stares longingly at the top hat and the tiny, tiny whip.


While the marching band laboriously struggles through the overture from Tannhauser, the bleeding clown weeps and twists a balloon monkey into shape.  The squeak, squeak, squeak of the latex causes tiny, closely-shorn hairs to stand up on the backs of seven demonic Pomeranians.  They growl.  They yap.  The woman in the top hat cries out in a seething rage, "nadol, hnusné beštie!  Nadol!"


Nothing like this has ever taken place on Juniper Lane, you are certain of that.  While the strains of the overture are pleasant, you remember that there is a nice cup of coffee waiting for you next to your armchair.  Wouldn't it be nice to sit back down, enjoy the morning and relax in the comforting quiet of your parlor?  Yes, indeed it would be.  You take your seat, enjoy your coffee and dig in to your crossword puzzle.


The clown is left, barely breathing, in a heap on Juniper Lane - his balloon monkey in shreds.


Mrs. Remke puts a plate of bacon and eggs in front of Mr. Remke.  A tiny, tiny whip cracks over his head.  "Nadol, hnusné beštie!" cries Mrs. Remke, in her best Slovak.


(Appeared in Red Fez #33, April 2011)

Schenectady in Springtime

Talk about white, ceramic coffee cups and really rickety, old mom's kitchen-style chairs with the little handle cut through the top of the chair back. “Aside from wireless internet, this place could be 1980.” Father Mike Stencil, our erstwhile hero, was staring at a really clean floor. “New tile,” he muttered aloud to the four walls and those kitchen chairs with the handles cut into their backs.

The Mexican nuns busied themselves with breakfast preparations – a little bowl of butter pats here, some carcinogenic sweetener packets there; oatmeal, oatmeal, fricking oatmeal in a big old fricking tub. When Mike thought of the oatmeal, he used a different word than “fricking.” The Bishop would never know...only God would know, but He probably had the same feeling about the big old oatmeal tub, Mike thought.

Call no earthly man “father,” Mike liked to think to himself – to remind himself, to shake his head over at times like this. The nuns could not resist saying “good morning, Father,” each time they walked past him. “'Morning, S'ter,” he would respond each time. No commands about whether or not to call an earthly woman “sister,” is there?

“Mrmph,” said Mike aloud, “more'nother cuppa joe.” A Mexican nun looked at him strangely. She was not used to hearing priests talk to themselves, apparently. Maybe he was talking to God in sort of a coffee-hound's prayer...maybe it is an ecstatic moment...perhaps the Holy Ghost is moving this bleary-eyed, middle-aged priest to new heights of spiritual rapture. He thought about bursting into song in Spanish to freak the ever-lovin' daylights out of the nuns, but the only Spanish song that he could think of was “Don't Cry for me Argentina,” and he quickly realized that while Eva Peron most assuredly spoke Spanish, the song itself was in English. “The Girl from Ipanema” would probably not do, either. That pretty much exhausted his quasi-Spanish repetoire.

The coffee was good and hot, and the white ceramic cup ever so clean. The day so bright and the Old Spice on his face so aromatic. What more could a man ask for? Many, many things that Mike could think of, to tell the truth, but on this morning he was content to sip coffee and wait for the sisters to finish their breakfast preparations.

“Cella Luna, mezzo Mari, mama mia ho maritari,” sang Father Mike Stencil in pigeon Sicilian, not quite at the top of his lungs, “vica mia cutadari mama mia pe' sacce du!”

A thin young nun dropped a big old fricking bowl of oatmeal on the tile floor. A fat nun laughed a good hearty laugh.

Mike Stencil smiled from ear to fricking ear.

It's Only Coffee - I Wish it Were Something Else.

Well, another Friday afternoon is here.  As this week has been one for the record books, I find myself with several more pages to write in order to "bring home the bacon-flavored microwaveable cheese snacks."  I am taking this much-needed 15 minute blog break while I refuel on grandma-style percolator coffee, a lot of stretching my arms above my head, craning my neck backwards and moaning "aaaarrrrhhhhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuhhhhhnnnnnhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh"  (Is that the name of some Hindu god?).


I would much prefer to be sitting in this exact same spot, swilling a little special something with an olive in the bottom and writing about the exploits of Father Mike Stencil or one of the other quasi-fictional people who inhabit my coffee-fueled melon.  Such is life.  One must, after all, put bread on the table and beer in the icebox.  I am blessed to be able to write at my kitchen table with a dog beneath me - what I affectionately refer to as my "home office."  The folks in my real office, when they see me come back from time to time, wonder why the turn-ups on my trousers are matted with white dog hair.


Let them wonder.  Time to get back to the salt mine.

The Perfect Percolator...

An early St. Valentine's Day gift from my darling wife...and it makes the perfect cup of Grandma's coffee, too!  Thank you, Shelly!

A Pilly Sweater

The wash of jazz over the brain as I pull my car into a spot in the parking lot, looking for that next heady cup of coffee – full of steamy, dark, rich goodness and life. We came close to finding the perfect percolator this past weekend...close but no cigar...so it will be some fast, cheap drip-style brew again today. Where, oh where could that perfect percolator be? Call out to me, you stainless-steel holy grail...I am your Galahad, seeking you...seeking you.

The grey clouds over the praire look down at me the same way an old, pilly sweater looks with contempt at the shirt it covers. “Be quiet, you button-down devil that speaks only of another decade, another time, another set of marinara stains that I'm forced to cover,” speaks that sweater to that shirt; “go home and sleep or else make something of yourself,” speak those clouds to me. The wash of jazz stops cold in the touch of a button, the turn of a key. The clouds get closer; I seek out that coffee. It is hot and burns the tongue, filling the mouth with an acrid wash...acrid wash...acrid wash. Wash of jazz, wash of jazz. It's all about wash today. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow, purify me and I shall be made clean. Vince Guaraldi in my car gives way to Dave Brubeck in my head and I cozy up to this typewriter that they call a netbook. I once cozied up to a pen that they called a typewriter, and the same damned wash came out.

Over and over, over and over. It feels so right, feels so good. Who was it that said that line “a million burning suns”? Did I read it? Dream it? Write it myself? Plagiarize it? Over and over the words come from deep inside and the wash wash wash feels good. Wash. “The most beautiful sounding word in the English language,” I once said about that word, and I said it over and over. You can have your cellar door – I have the wash.

Another cup of coffee. Stand. Stretch. Get to work.

$.97 for Unleaded

“Would you like something to drink with that?” The waitress stared at Mike with a really strange look in her eyes...a look that on a very, very hot day would melt really soft chocolate at the very least – maybe even wax.  No, probably not wax, on second thought.  It was less of an intense gaze than it was something of a look of nausea. Nausea or maybe ennui with a touch of indigestion.

“Umm...no...thanks,” he replied, “I'll just have the eggs. Maybe a piece of dry toast.” he thought about Dan Ackroyd's line in “the Blues Brothers” about the dry white toast, and he laughed aloud...just a little bit of a laugh. It was enough to make the waitress look back at him as she walked back to her station. Her gum chewing slowed down to a steady grind, and a little bit of saliva glistened in the corner of her mouth. It picked up light from the overhead fluorescents and blinked on and off at Mike as she chewed. On. Off. On off on off. On. Off. On off. Mike looked away and stared across the diner at the really large fellow whom he took to be a truck driver – the guy was wearing a t-shirt that was far too tight and was emblazoned with the words “I 80 Truckstop – Walcott, Iowa.”

Mike remembered getting a cup of coffee at that truck stop in Walcott. He was a freshman in college at the time, and he was on some kind of crazy spring break trip to somewhere in Iowa – a trip to a destination he and his friends never reached. It was in Walcott that the harmony in the car had broken down...all due to a disagreement over who was paying for the next tank of gas. Mike and his roommate from Colby, Wisconsin sat in a booth and drank coffee while a few others walked around the truck stop, complaining and looking at porcelain statuary – the sort of commemorative art that depicts a miniature Harley Davidson with a bison painted on the gas tank and being driven by a miniature naked Sioux warrior queen or something like that. The evening ended with a stolen coffee cup being thrown through the windshield of a semi-truck and a mad drive through the streets of Walcott. They turned around after that and drove back home without ever reaching their destination, and Mike and his roommate never really saw much of their other travelling companions the rest of the semester.

“How dumb,” thought Mike, as he thought back over the intervening years, “how really dumb that whole trip was.” It had been a good chance to learn something about how fragile friendship can be, and about how easily feelings can be hurt. It was also a good chance to learn about how relatively easy it is to break auto glass with a coffee cup.

The big truck driver-type got up and started making his way out of the restaurant before Mike ever got his food. He walked right toward Mike and tipped his hat as he passed.

Mike's hand flexed around his coffee cup. He watched the man exit. “The World's Largest Truck Stop,” in inch-high letters sprawled across the back of his t-shirt.

“And the world's worst coffee,” thought Michael.

Zippers and Lattes

I made some coffee in a regular drip-style coffee pot today, and it was fairly decent. It goes without saying that coffee from the perfect percolator would have been infinitely better, but this stuff was not too bad. It brought to mind a little story about a boy named Chuck and his nylon trousers.

It seems that Chuck was rather enamored of those nylon trousers that were all the rage at one point in the 1980's – they usually had a number of zippers on them – more zippers and pockets than any man could want, need or use. In the trade they were referred to as “parachute pants.” In retrospect we refer to them as “lame.” Such was the nature of so many things from the 1980's, such as “hair bands” and “the moonwalk.”

I stray from the story, however.

Chuck loved his red parachute pants, and no one could ever figure out exactly why. He continued to wear these lil' devils well past their demise in popular fashion, and so it was that he found himself on a blind date at a coffee shop on the upper east-side, clad in the aforementioned “parachute pants.” Don't ask why, children, just let Uncle Tom tell the story.

Chuck and his blind date had just been to a movie, and there they sat, sipping some sorts of coffee drinks while seated at a high table and stools. The young lady frequently threw nervous glances at Chuck's legs and then even more nervous glances around the shop.

“She thinks I'm hot,” thought Chuck, “she keeps checking out my legs.” This thought alternated with “she likes my pants,” and Chuck was sure this date was going to be the first of many. He never let enter his mind the thought “these pants are lame.”

At the close of the evening, pleasantries were exchanged and Chuck brought up the inevitable, “can I call you sometime?”

“I think I'm moving away,” the young lady replied. “To another state.”

“Really?” Where?

“Away. Thanks for the movie and the coffee. Umm, bye. Good night.”

Chuck walked slowly back to his car, his trousers “shushing” in the night.

“Damn,” he thought to himself, “If I'd known I'd never see her again I would have made her pay for the coffee.”

Chuck eventually finished a PhD in Particle Physics and most nights after work he sits home alone playing mahjong online. His parachute pants have lain dormant for almost twenty years, neatly folded and silent at the bottom of a box in the cedar closet.

My Name is Juan Valdez, What's Your Sign?

I walked into a west-side resale shop the other day with the expressed purpose of finding the perfect percolator. I think you know the sort of percolator I am talking about here – didn't we all have them somewhere in our childhood? Whether it was at grandma's house or in our own kitchen, there was that percolator – silver, aerodynamic and capable of producing coffee like we used to make it in this country. Seventy-five years ago Americans used to make coffee that was worthy of respect, coffee that could stand up on its own and look you in the eyes like a man, coffee that was served steamy, hot, black and in a porcelained tin cup. The theme song from “Bonanza” might even start playing when you drank that coffee – never mind that Bonanza wasn't around seventy-five years ago.

Coffee at the logging camp. Coffee on the cattle path. Coffee at the hunting camp. Coffee at grandma's house. The kind of coffee and percolators that Aldo Leopold wrote about with such great affection. That was coffee and those were coffee makers, by gum. No stubbly-chinned, bleary-eyed barrista handing you a paper cup with a corrugated sleeve so as not to burn your precious hand, no sir. You know the percolator, and you remember the coffee. Maybe you do, at any rate.

Anyhow, I walked into a west-side resale shop looking for that very percolator and came up very short handed, indeed. The only percolator there that day had a “strength adjustment lever” on it. I always thought the handle of the coffee-ground scoop was the “strength adjustment lever” - more coffee grounds, stronger coffee; fewer coffee grounds, weaker coffee. Perhaps I have missed something in the intervening years. I walked away from the household appliance section of that resale shop very empty handed, I can assure you.

The only thing to really catch my eye was a certain paperback on the shelves. Complete Horoscope – Taurus, 1979. It was sitting there, mixed in with a number of other obscure but interesting titles. I noted with some interest that it had not been marked down and thrown into the “clearance” bin.

“Hmmm,” I thought to myself, “if not now, when?”

Maybe 1979 is more relevant than we thought. And perhaps the sign of Taurus is making a big comeback or something.

Maybe not.

I will just keep looking for the perfect percolator.