"Give a frontiersman coffee and tobacco, and he will endure any privation, suffer any hardship, but let him be without these two necessaries of the woods, and he becomes irresolute and murmuring."
- U.S. Army Lt. William Whiting, 1849
I swear, minus the tobacco, this is the basic truth to survival of some of the most enduring hardships -- getting up and going to the same freakin job for 40 years (if you are so lucky in our modern day where most people have no less than 8 career changes in a 30 year period), getting up and being married to the same freakin person every day, or the other side of that...getting up and not having anyone else in your life you can count on every single day . . . coffee is that one thing you can count on. It can make you feel more like it might just get a little better, because it does...with each cup...until the day is over and you have to wake up again the next day.
If you're a coffee lover like me, every time you have a cup of coffee, everything else seems more manageable. That cup in the morning is my best friend...it knows exactly what I'm going through and soothes me by saying, "just have another sip...it gets better. When the world is falling down around you, you can still stare into my warm brown essence and know that I will always be here for you...sorry about the ulcer, but don't think about that."
Sure, I remember similar conversations when I hung out with my old friend "cigarette" -- but it always ended worse:
"...sorry about all the money you've wasted and the smell permeating your clothes, hair and car, and the coughing and impending cancer...but don't think about that."
Where is my good friend now? Oh, just brewed another pot of him...
