Having a Cup a Jo!!
Posted by: Cupajo [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 13, 2009 05:33AM Registered: 11 months ago
Posts: 936
My Dad drank his coffee black his entire adult life as did his brother and their father before them. They always said they couldnt ruin a good cup of coffee by putting things like milk and sugar in it! When I started drinking coffee as a teen, I put milk and sugar in mine and was looked down upon for it too. As time passed and I joined the military, I gave up milk. Some how the milk/coffee combo started causing me physiological distress and I stopped using it.
After a while I dropped sugar and learned to enjoy a cup of coffee for the flavor of the coffee in its many variations. I prefer a Columbian blend hot and black today. I cant stand flavorings added to my coffee and detest Hazelnut with a passion! I have an old broad based plastic cup that doesnt tip over easily that I carry in my truck and has had many gallons of coffee through it by now Im sure. I start my day early with a steaming cup of Green Mountain Columbian Blend bought at a local convenience store/gas station.
I dont generally wash the old cup although I do rinse it with scalding water from time to time. The plastic cup is seasoned and has a character all its own. Once in a while the brewer will mix up the pots and that causes me to have to carefully rinse the cup, but the plastic will pick up tastes so I avoid soap at all costs! The reason I use it instead of some other kind of cup is that it fits my hand and is nearly indestructible. I have two cups of coffee a day and sometimes a third. More than that is too much.
Many mornings I will catch the sunrise and perhaps enjoy a cinnamon roll as I do, while watching for evidence of boat, bird or fish activity across the surface of The Sound. This morning I skipped the socializing enjoyed on most mornings and settled in at my keyboard to write this bit of nonsense. The early morning socializing has become as much a joyful event as watching the sun rise and is reserved mostly for those days when overcast doesnt allow the sun to peek through.
The regulars are on their way to work, going fishing (in season), going to school (students and teachers) or perhaps just getting a tank of gas and passing through our small community. There are a few retired or semi-retired folks that drop by and the scene is never the same from one morning to the next.
Across the street at another small convenience store, there is a cadre of regulars that gather each morning and swap lies of how life has been for them. They are mostly retired and the atmosphere is a bit tiresome for me, so I avoid the group unless I have to see one of their number about one thing or another.
A fellow stopped in for a paper one morning a couple of months ago and commented that it was chilly that morning. It was 28 degrees and windy and I assured him that in Maine where he comes from it may be chilly, in Connecticut it is cold, but in Texas where I came from it would be damned cold! Later in the day, when I notice myself slipping into my mid-afternoon slump, Ill stop in for my usual caffeine fix.
As a long time local plumber I have met a lot of these folks and enjoy our brief encounters. During the summer months there are seasonal residents to get re-acquainted with and loads of youngsters from the nearby beaches, with tiny bits of cloth mostly (barely?) covering their attributes. As the resident old guy, I can have lots of fun kidding around with these kids. I suggested to one sweet young thing last summer that she should have liability insurance to protect her from lawsuits she might be involved in for causing some of us older men heart attacks! Suffice it to say, she was a barely clad knockout!!!
Sometimes during the course of my day I enjoy a cup with one of my many friends/customers that know I am a coffee drinker. I had a customer that is no longer with us who used to drink coffee all day long when he was a Navy Admiral. He had a steward that kept his cup filled and ready at all times. He grinned and said that he never finished a cup, but would take a sip when it occurred to him. I suggested an intravenous drip and that brought a wonderful laugh from the old fellow who had been the commander of our largest aircraft carrier at one time, the Ticonderoga.
I used to look forward to working for Admiral Chase, because after I finished my job, he would have two cups of steaming hot, black coffee waiting and he and I would enjoy talking about life. He was involved with PT boats as a young officer and sometimes would share a bit of his experiences from those times. He lived in an old family farmhouse overlooking the Connecticut River, between Deep River and Essex, Connecticut. I miss the old Admiral and our visits and the gleam in his eyes when we shared time together.
Now you know why I chose Cupajo as a screen moniker.
Cupajo
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Ol Frank would love to see that one..
Posted by: Mikie [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 13, 2009 08:34AM Registered: 4 years ago
Posts: 5,373
What an unusual design, Cupa. It does seem to be the lot of far too many ideas.... That they die aborning.
There was a company in Victoria that had a few revolutionary ideas on aircraft design. Unfortunately, the market is/was geared for a pretty specific design.... so that is thew way that they eventually went.
calm seas
Mikie
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"A dog is better than me, for she has love and does not judge"
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Either Earlr Grey tea or a regualr orange pekoe works for me.. :
Posted by: Mikie [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 13, 2009 08:43AM Registered: 4 years ago
Posts: 5,373
That and a bit of lemon in it.
But where is the picture of the sweet young thing. :
Sunny skies
Mikie
________________________________________
"A dog is better than me, for she has love and does not judge"
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Re: Ol Frank would love to see that one. I've been very fortunate in my life to come into contact with rarecreations a few times ala the Tucker and this unusual craft and the great folks on this forum!! N/T
Posted by: Cupajo [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 13, 2009 10:15AM Registered: 11 months ago
Posts: 936
Re: Either Earlr Grey tea or a regualr orange pekoe works for me.. :
Posted by: Cupajo [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 13, 2009 10:24AM Registered: 11 months ago
Posts: 936
Picture of the heart stopper?-----------In my mind!
Sorry I can't share!
Cupajo
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2009 10:25AM by Cupajo.
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Nice job of .........
Posted by: Wayne in BC [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 13, 2009 07:39PM Moderator
Registered: 4 years ago
Posts: 6,879
filling us in Cupa! Good reading and all hits home
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No trees were harmed in the making of this post, however, a whole lot of electrons were confused and inconvenienced
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Re: Nice job of .........
Posted by: Cupajo [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 13, 2009 09:44PM Registered: 11 months ago
Posts: 936
Why Thank You Wayne,
I was sure that there would be a few folks out there that would find the water craft post interesting.
I know I have enjoyed knowing about the details and the gentleman who developed the concept here.
He enthusiasticly promoted his creation until it was destroyed and had funding enough to proceed had the craft survived.
I wish I had traveled in it before it met its demise. I was one of a kind and was a really exciting concept!
Thanks for your comments,
Cupajo
Mulligan Stew of Humanity---The Mill Block
Posted by: Cupajo [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 14, 2009 05:31AM Registered: 11 months ago
Posts: 936
In the Mill Block we lived in a couple of different houses during my parents employment at the cotton mill. The last house we lived in there burned and the neighbors I remember most were the one eyed French woman I wrote about in other posts and the Hahn family whos son Curtis was my age. He much later joined the air force and it was largely due to talking to him about the military that I decided to join up.
The other house we were in before that was poorly located on a busy street and my parents took the first available house in the back end of the Mill Block where it was quieter. Our neighbors while we lived in the first house were another boy my age Arthur Hopkins and his family and a fellow called Mupsie Holtz. I remember poor Mupsie being henpecked by a wife that had as caustic an outlook on life as anyone I ever met. She brow beat her poor husband so badly that he was angry most of the time.
They had a daughter married to Shorty Bremstedder. Shorty was a quiet, somewhat mousey sort of fellow, who would rather hunt and fish and hang out in the forests of the local river bottom land than work. The fact that the couple had two kids to feed didnt seem to matter to Shorty, because when the weather got warm enough for camping along the Guadalupe River, Shorty would disappear! He knew his in-laws wouldnt let his family starve and he stayed as far away from them and their criticism as possible when he could.
One night there was a pounding on our door and when my Dad answered, it was Mupsie who had been drinking and was looking for Shorty. He told my Dad he knew Shorty was in our house and that he was coming in to drag him out! Dad was more in tune with Shorty than Mupsie and told him that Shorty was not in our house and that if he (Mupsie) thought he was coming inside he had better think again! He reached into the corner behind the open door and picked up the loaded shotgun that was there and allowed Mupsie a brief glimpse of it.
The big fellow did a double take, his face turning ashen and he jumped down off our steps and we heard nothing more from him that night! I cant recall what ever happened to Shorty, but he had the sympathy of most of the people who knew his circumstances.
That housing complex had a Mulligan Stew of humanity all of whom worked at the mill or were their family members. It was an interesting place for a youngster who enjoyed watching humankind and their antics. Mupsie and the mean old gal he married, had a son that was simple minded. The boy had suffered scarlet fever when very young and was poorly ever after. I dont remember him going to school and the few times I recall seeing him around he was usually wandering about singing to himself and the world in general.
There were a lot of Germanic folk known locally as Bohemians who were hard working and kind and offered me a chance to learn about some things I might not have learned as a small boy elsewhere. I think they may have come from Czechoslovakia, but I dont know if thats true. I watched as they rendered hog fat into lard and they made sausage and I tasted cracklings for the first time. Cracklings or rinds for the un-initiated are the pork skin pieces left after nearly all the fat has been boiled out of them. They taste great to a half starved boy and will quickly make you sick if you eat a few too many. Later in life I learned they tasted better with a little salt and beer.
Cupajo
Re: Either Earlr Grey tea or a regualr orange pekoe works for me.. :
Posted by: Cupajo [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 14, 2009 06:10AM Registered: 11 months ago
Posts: 936
I remember reading years ago about tea being a Ying substance and coffee being a Yang substance in the oriental view of things.
According to this way of thinking a person should have a balance of the two kinds of influences to live a full and healthy life.
There was a period of a few years when I too only drank tea, especially green tea.
Somewhere along the trail of life I went back to coffee and I am not sure if I made the right choice as much as I do enjoy a cup.
It can create harsh responses in the old bod.
Do ya think anyone would notice if I put tea in my coffee cup?
After all I am,
Cupajo
I lived in a few places like that Cupa...........
Posted by: Wayne in BC [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 14, 2009 03:14PM Moderator
Registered: 4 years ago
Posts: 6,879
we remember well what you described of characters and run down housing! Thanks for the memories, i think
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No trees were harmed in the making of this post, however, a whole lot of electrons were confused and inconvenienced
Cupajo, I really liked your rendition of Mulligan Stew of Humanity.
Posted by: Arkie John [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 14, 2009 03:15PM Registered: 3 years ago
Posts: 1,839
I had to laugh at the last line, for sure. My maternal grandparents were part of a 'company town' called Bauxite, here in Arkansas. It was a way of life for so very many. He paid $12.00 a month for rent, but made very little in the way of wages. I suppose the greatest thing was the job security he had a the plant and the fact that the company store would give them credit until payday. They were probably much like the old song Ernie Ford made famous: Sixteen Tons. "Sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt, St. Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go...I owe my soul to the company sto'."
Yup, a whole different sociology than most people of this day and age ever knew about. Thanks for the story. It gives me reflections of Steinbeck's "Cannery Row."
aj
Re: Cupajo, I really liked your rendition of Mulligan Stew of Humanity.
Posted by: Cupajo [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 14, 2009 05:05PM Registered: 11 months ago
Posts: 936
"Cannery Row" kinda the story of my growing up until I left home!!
A lot of us been there done that!!
Glad you and Wayne enjoyed the recollections,
CJ
Joe, A good man.
Posted by: Cupajo [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 15, 2009 05:51AM Registered: 11 months ago
Posts: 936
Joe, a man of his times, my father-in-law and my friend.
There are few men that Ive met in my life that have as much of my respect and admiration as Joe. The son of Paul and Concetta, born September 20th 1913, in Canicatenese Bagni, Syracuse Province, Sicily. He grew to the age five not knowing his father, who had left his family to travel to the U.S.A. where he started a fruit delivery business in Hartford, Connecticut. His father would return to Sicily every four or five years to renew his relationship with his family and father another child. After building his business to a volume that would enable him to bring his family to America he sent for Concetta, Sam, Ralph, Francesca, and five year old Joe to join him in Hartford. His Mom in an effort to save money wrote down his age on the necessary paperwork as five years when he was actually six years of age, a fact he was to learn after he reached his nineties. He was amused to learn of his mothers trick, but it made no difference to him as he was eternally young at heart and remained so until he left us at ninety four.
The five years before immigrating were spent mostly with his Mom and family surviving hard times in Sicily. Days were spent with his Mom searching the countryside for firewood and any foodstuffs that were to be found, growing and exploring. He developed a very strong bond for his Mom that he still feels today ninety years later. His Mom didnt want to leave Sicily and her Mom and friends, but a wifes place was with her husband. A little over a year after arriving in this country she developed stomach cancer and died. Joe was distraught and became even more a child of the streets than he was before.
Joes father had no experience raising children and no patience for a small boys antics. Sam and Frances were both out on their own, Ralph was living with his Dad and Joe. Both his Dad and Ralph were hard on the boy and he learned to avoid them as much as possible spending most of each day living on the streets of Hartfords south end.
Joe finished four years of formal schooling and ran the streets working as a shoeshine boy and at any other job he could to make a few pennies to buy food for his growing body. He quickly became as tough as he had to be to get along as a shoe shine boy. He had to fight to earn a choice spot on the down town street and to keep it, the fights were bare knuckle rough and tumble and were all too frequent. (They created a love of boxing in him that lasted the rest of his life). The years were marked by the regular beatings by his Dad and cuffing by Ralph usually for being a wise street kid. He and friends were to learn how to beg borrow and steal to survive on the streets.
In the summers he spent time at the Connecticut River in Hartford learning to swim and having fun in the water. He and his friends scooted around the streets on their gigies, wooden scooters built of scavenged wood and whatever wheels could be scrounged (old baby buggy wheels were perfect). When heavy contraband had to be moved the gigies were the handiest way to go. On one occasion he and his friends found an airplane fuselage in a crate at warehouse and using their gigies rolled it through the streets, past the police station where the officers were changing shifts and waved at those crazy kids as they passed by, to a place where they were planning to put an engine in it and fly it away. It was recovered before anyone got hurt and the incident provided years of laughs for all concerned. He was only twelve or so years old at the time.
In the winter he sledded down the hilly streets of Hartford as there was no traffic to speak of in those days. Sailing down one such hill he opted to pass under a parked truck and nearly died when he ripped his scalp loose on the undercarriage of the truck. He spent time in the hospital for the first time in his young life and bears the scar to this day. If he had held his head another 1/2 inch higher and he would surely have died.
Cupajo
Cupajo, I wonder why he decided to go under that truck? ...........
Posted by: Kelley (Texas) [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 15, 2009 06:11AM Registered: 4 years ago
Posts: 5,649
Reading your story about Joe shows the contrast of life styles of growing up in Texas when compared to growing up in the New England States. Good story, I enjoyed reading it. Please have a great day! Kelley (Texas)
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Re: Cupajo, I wonder why he decided to go under that truck? ...........
Posted by: Cupajo [ Send a Message ]
Date: April 15, 2009 06:58AM Registered: 11 months ago
Posts: 936
That is a question he asked himself for the rest of his life.
It was a child's miscalculation I'm sure and must have seemed a cool thing to do at the time.
Some of those old trucks were pretty high off the ground, but not high enough in this case or perhaps he just kept his head too high or didn't duck fast enough!
Thanks for reading and your reply,
CJ
N/T
Joe's Teen Years And Early Manhood!!
:N/T
