Gavel Gamut

5

By Jim Redwine
COFFEE

I did not start drinking coffee until I was forty-seven when the first President Bush sent my son to the Iraq War. Some of you may recall how our country rallied to the war tocsin in 1990. News accounts were non-stop and full of fervent cries to eliminate our former ally from the Iraq-Iran War (1980 – 1990). Mainly our country was hoping to erase the memories of Vietnam.
Because our family had skin in the war it was much more than a flag waving game to us and other families similarly situated. In my family we would stay up all night watching and waiting for news with trepidation. Coffee went from an ill tasting curiosity to a close friend.
Then, when the second President Bush sent Jim off to find weapons of mass destruction, coffee became, as one of my favorite musicians Randy Pease sings, “my favorite drug”. I met Randy at the New Harmony coffee shop on the corner of Church and Main. He is originally from Evansville, but, as one of those coincidences that seem to just happen in coffee shops, he and I both attended Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Randy’s song about another coffee house contains the “caffeine is my favorite drug” line and is worth your time and the price of a compact disc.
The New Harmony coffee house is run by Sara and Dave Brown. Dave has loaned me his two volume set of A Documentary History of the Indiana Decade of the Harmony Society 1814 – 1824. The books contain copies of letters and other documents of the Harmonists compiled by the editor, Karl J. R. Arndt. Many are letters from George and Frederick Rapp. By coincidence, on page 381 of Volume I there is a receipt dated August 27, 1817 from one David Brown evidencing that Frederick Rapp paid him $52.00 and 12 ½ cents for “nursing and funeral expenses” for another Harmonist member. There is no explanation for not paying the entire bill of $65.12 ½ cents. According to the bill, the nursing cost $5.00, the coffin cost $5.00, the plot cost $5.00 and digging the grave cost $2.00. We can look into the other curiosities found in the volumes over the next few weeks.
The coffee shop is like the description of a Paris café. As you sip caffeine you sometimes can have a series of near life experiences where things you have forgotten and things you only wish you had done mingle in a mélange of pleasant or lively conversations and quiet reflections. Perhaps whoever coined the phrase “Life begins at forty” started drinking coffee then too.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

5 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks, Jim.
    I look forward to more of your ruminations and literary snap shots into your life.

  3. I really like this down to earth type of writing.

    CCO looks like you have a writer with the common touch.

  4. It is nice to see that someone remembers Operation Desert Storm (Quick, what was Operation Just Cause?)….
    I was no fan of Desert Storm, I was on a minesweeper in San Diego at the time, but compared to subsequent foreign adventures it looks less stupid. Who would have thought that we would long for the stability of Hussein, Mubarek and Quaddafy (sp?)

    • You and I long for stability, but the companies making the bombs and the MREs are raking it in. Times couldn’t be better for those blood suckers.

Comments are closed.