A time machine for only 7 bucks plus accessories

Is it better that one should feel like an idiot rather than being one who is an idiot with no feelings at all?

Who wrote that? I did, just now.

Whether my lead is a profundity or mere blather, chances are someone has thought or expressed those sentiments at one time or another. None of this really matters anyway, for I am about to talk about coffee. What, did I bury my lead somewhere? Where is it? You get the shovel and I will borrow a GPS and perhaps we can find that damn thing.

Once upon a time, I drank a lot of coffee. As my great hero, prophet Willie Nelson, once wrote: ” … and I learned it all in the Navy.” Quite odd lyrics because Nelson was in the Air Force, but it rhymes for his song “Pick Up the Tempo.”

“I’m quiet and I’m loud and I’m gathering a crowd and I like gravy/About half off the wall but then I learned it all in the Navy.”

Great words when you think about it. It describes me, somewhat, back when I drank a lot of beer — and coffee.

The two go hand in hand, beer and coffee. Copious amounts of both substances were always around back in my Navy days. This was much more the case in shore duty than at sea. You aren’t supposed to drink alcoholic beverages while at sea, for the most part at least, with the U.S. Navy. That is not to say it doesn’t or hasn’t happened. Smoking illegal substances also wasn’t, and isn’t, allowed while on shipboard either. That didn’t mean you wouldn’t find some sailor higher than the main mast at any given time back in the late 70s when I sailed on a destroyer.

Back to coffee though, it was everywhere and you could find it in big industrial coffee makers. That is what we  drank, big industrial coffee. Beer was also omnipresent back then as I told some of my brothers and other kin this weekend at a family reunion. In an effort to make the Navy more livable, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo “Bud” Zumwalt, made certain liberal changes such as making beer available in vending machines in more of the Navy’s “BEQs,” which was what barracks were dubbed. BEQ, stood for, bachelor enlisted quarters. Honestly, you could get a PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon), an Oly (Olympia) or the evil Schlitz beer for just 30 cents a can.

Then, you could drink a couple of cold ones at lunch at the Navy Exchange cafe or at the Enlisted, Chief’s or Officer’s clubs.

After knocking off work, many would stop off at the bar off base. In my case, this was Jim’s Lounge or the Postman’s Lounge, which were a block down the street from each other in Gulfport.

If one put their minds, well I guess those aren’t the proper words to use but, to it they could drink a lot of beer by the time it was time to go back to the barracks for a night’s sleep. Then, you get up, head to the chow hall for breakfast. Eat eggs and bacon or Shit on the Shingle (cream chipped beef on toast) and have  massive amounts of industrial coffee before heading to work, where the first order of business was for one to break their coffee mug out of their desk and  head to the coffee machine.

It was a big, vicious, circle and thankfully I finally went to sea where we only drank beer in port for the most part. Of course, if you were at sea for two or three weeks you had a tendency to make up for all that lost beer-drinking time once you hit port.

Although I long have only had the occasional beer instead of my massive days of beer swilling, I drank quite a bit of coffee up until five or so years ago. That was when I last worked, full-time, for a newspaper. Newspapers, despite their quiet sounds of desperation these days, complete with the stealthy tapping of computer keys, still produce their share of heavy coffee drinkers. As for beer drinkers or that of any other kind of alcohol, I don’t know. There are probably some ranging from the Gen Ys to the fading Old goats from the Boomer days who go get loaded after work. I can attest that for the most part, the really old days of having a pint bottle in your desk drawer has long been gone. I don’t know what the Gen Ys do these days, and don’t really care. Right now I am a bit miffed at the Gen Ys. I’ll get over it, maybe.

Gradually, I came to drink less and less coffee. Some days I have managed to barely drink a cup of coffee, and have even skipped a cup, picking up a relatively tasteless unsweetened ice tea from McDonald’s on the way to work. I have even thought about just quitting coffee altogether.

But there is something about coffee that I seem to need and it isn’t particularly the caffeine apparently. Coffee transcends the many phases of my life ranging from the coffee with milk and sugar that I used to have at Mom’s, what we called the only grandparent I ever knew, through the Navy, as a fireman, in college (where the lady cashier in the student center cafe always called us “Hon,”) my slacker days, my journalist days to present day. That”s about 50 years of coffee. Thank goodness I quit cigarettes 10 years ago.

So I am sitting here, wondering just why in the hell I bought a new coffee maker earlier this afternoon at “Tar-jas.”

Last week I had at least one cup of coffee while staying in a motel near Dallas. The Joe machine was one of those with the coffee in a pouch inside wrapping. You put the pouch in the filter basket and it makes two cups of Java. The coffee was pretty good too considering the water there tasted like it was taken minus purification from Lake Lewisville. I had the idea after this experience that I would try to find me a one or two cup coffee maker. My reasoning was that the microwaved instant just doesn’t get it done, plus a regular Mr. Coffee wastes too much water and coffee when I am brewing the cup o’ mud just for myself. I don’t know about anyone else but when you brew one cup of coffee in one of those machines, it just doesn’t come out like anything  compared to cooking coffee for at least three cups.

Only, the coffee makers that make one or two cups were all for sale with at least three digits to the left of the decimal point. What? Then, I found a Chefmate, regular 12-cup maker, on sale for $7 at Target. Right. Like I am gong to spend a hundred something dollars to make one or two cups of coffee when I can get a machine for $7. Really, I want just a cup. That’s about it. That can of Maxwell House will probably last me three-quarters of a year.

I know there are differences in coffee machines and those who are really into coffee can justify the expense of what pricey Joe machines turn out for the discriminating coffee head. If you are really THAT into coffee,you should seek professional help, you should check out this site.

For me, coffee is a delivery system for a little bit of stimulation that I sometimes need as well as a portal to the majority of my life. Coffee is a time machine that paying $2-4 in Starbucks for will not make those memories any clearer, nor will it achieve whatever level of a coffee buzz that I seem to use these days. That level of stimulation is not a very high mark. The memories remain what they were years ago.

Hopefully, my coffee will taste good when I drink it in the morning. That is all I ask for and if it is achieved for 7 bucks plus the dollar stack of filters and the three bucks for almost a year’s worth of coffee, I will see that as one hell of a bargain.