By Jefferson Weaver
In Act II, Scene 2 of Macbeth, the title character is having a crisis.
Fraught with a guilty conscience, with a murderous harpy of a wife and scheming friends, he longs for rest, a good night’s sleep –
“…the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast…”
He seeks some rest, the ability to greet a dawn and have a new, fresh perspective without the nightmares slowly and sinuously surrounding him, signaling an inevitable demise that he sees clearly, but feels he can do nothing about.
I would submit that had the Yemeni goatherds who first traded coffee to Europe to Europe and Great Britain had a greater vision, Ol’ Mac might have had a better time of it.
He would have realized that the true “Nourisher in life’s feast” is coffee.
We live in a strange time for coffee; there are hundreds of different beans, strengths, grinds and flavors, many of which are produced, peddled and pushed by pretentious post-adolescents who have yet to realize a degree in medieval transgender studies is no way to make a living.
I admit, I like some of the stronger, higher-end coffees as a special drink. Black Rifle Coffee is a special favorite, with Death Wish close behind, as both of those companies are All-American, pro-veteran firms who just happen to make a stinkin’ good cup of joe. But deep down inside, I’m just Maxwell House kind of guy, although my wife’s preference for Folgers means our coffee cans are red, not blue.
I grew up around coffee; I was a very little kid when I was allowed to have my first cup (heavily laced with cream and sugar to negate the growth-stunting effects that mothers have warned about for centuries.)
By the time I got out of college, I was a straight-black drinker, viewing a cup with anything added to it as a coffee-drink, rather than coffee.
My parents were inveterate coffee drinkers; Papa liked his with two spoons of sugar, while Mother drank hers black. Morning, night or pre-dawn, there are few important memories I have of my folks that did not involve a cup. Some are pleasant, some unpleasant, but even the neutral “just memories” events involved coffee.
My preferred mug at the office is a whimsical facsimile of a skull, since I ascribe to the mythical Vikingesque theory that one of the primary problems with society today is that we no longer drink from the skulls of our enemies. The cup was meant as a joke, but it actually holds a reasonable amount of mind-fuel and keeps it warm.
It also gives pause to those whose stainless-steel forever cups contain some fruitified abomination of a blueberry-espresso-latte-fizz that they call coffee.
I courted my wife over coffee; I was counseled through bad times, and counseled others, over coffee. A hot, steaming cup of reassurance is a sign that things can and will get better, whether it was shared by a stranger after I sank a canoe in freezing temperatures, warmed in a tin cup beside a campfire under a night sky that looks like a blue blanket with a million star-shaped cutouts, or just enjoyed by friends catching up at a counter or a table in a restaurant where everything else is moving too fast for general good health.
I know, love and respect several folks who don’t drink coffee; having been told by my killjoy of a doctor to at least cut back, if not eliminate my consumption of the Bean That Made Teheran Riot, I understand medical reasons for eschewing the black elixir of life. I even have a lot of affection for a select few folks who simply don’t like coffee, although I will admit, I am not sure I would wholly trust them in a dangerous situation.
As far as those who see coffee and turn up their noses with all the self-righteousness of a member of the legendary Harper Valley PTA – I bet my dogs wouldn’t like you, and if my dogs don’t like you, I sure don’t trust you.
I grew up in the newspaper business, and always assumed that newspapers were printed with as much coffee as ink; at the very least, it was needed to lubricate the typewriters and presses.
As I branched out, briefly, into other parts of the world, I discovered that indeed, the entirety of American commerce was actually run on coffee.
Our truck drivers in the circus drank coffee by the gallon; the fishermen who took pity on me and let me earn a few bucks banging shrimp trawl doors, fighting sharks or cutting fish usually had a thermos if not a bolted-down coffee pot onboard somewhere.
Depending on which historian you believe, our nation’s need for coffee really kicked into high gear when the British embargoed and taxed tea. Entrepreneurs and sailors from Africa and the West Indies simply began bringing in more coffee beans than smuggled tea leaves – and hence, we won our independence.
One of the medium-sized engagements of the Mexican War of the 1840s stalled when the almost-victorious American volunteers overran a camp of Santa Anna’s finest, but got distracted by the aroma of coffee boiling over a campfire. The Fusiliers escaped to fight another day while the Americans happily consumed coffee that they had lacked for much of their march.
The annals of the conflict between North and South are rife with references to coffee being prime plunder, and supposedly one of the primary impetus behind the Battle of Gettysburg, the other being shoes. More than one soldier on both sides of the War Between the States – as well as their younger brothers in the Indian and Spanish American wars, and their sons and grandsons in World War I – chewed roasted coffee beans when they didn’t have time for a fire.
There was a time when, horrifying as it sounds to ladies in the modern workplace, that female employees were actually judged on being an “accomplished coffee maker.” I saw a 1930s advertisement years ago that encouraged women to perfect their coffee-making skills so they could attract “the best husband material”.
A Scottish lady I knew who ran an inn for college students in Oxford (as in England) served tea, but drank coffee. The best coffee in any hospital can only be obtained by being nice and properly respectful of the nurses. And I am fairly sure that all branches of the military have a Military Occupation Specialty (MOS) that actually involves making coffee.
Yes. I love my coffee. Too much of it is unhealthy, but not enough can be unhealthy for other folks.
In the meantime, let’s have a cup and a smile, and solve some of the world’s problems.
We might even be able to knit that raveled sleeve of care that bugged Old Mac so much that he couldn’t sleep.
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