COFFEE CLUB

She really gave the old guy a funny look followed by a helpful but somewhat confused smile. The old guy smiled back while it slowly became clear to him the comunication problem was not a lack of intelligence by the "associate" of the sporting goods store, it was just a "senior moment" on his part.

The conversation that began this inquiry went like this, "excuse me, can you tell me if this store carries the old style percolator coffee pots?". 

"I don't know what that is". "Well it's the type of coffee pots people used before the Mister Coffee drip coffee maker was invented".

She looked at me like I had aliens crawling out of my butt. The more detail I went into about watching the coffee brew as the water turned darker and darker in the little sight glass on top, the more she turned her head with a quizzical look like dogs give you when you're talking shit to them.

It would have been frustrating if it hadn't been so damn funny. I was sure they would carry them, after all, campers still used them. I wanted one for the fishing shack so I could stop using those expensive coffee singles and I don't care for instant.

She finally called Rick on the radio, Rick was a little closer to my age group, although he grew up after the Mister Coffee made its debut he knew about the old perkers and gave her the location so we walked right to the same area I had scoured moments before and they magically appeared.

They had a nice selection of them, all non-electrics of course. As we stood there I waxed nostalgic on the "good ol days" of the world of yesteryear. God, when did I turn into that guy? The days of yore, when if you had a cell, it meant your ass was behind bars, back before "the bomb" was a way to describe something cool, it was something that Nikita Khrushchev wanted to drop on you so he could laugh his ass off while you duck and cover. The closest we came to lasers and computers was watching science fiction movies and the internet existed only in Al Gores head.

I could just see in my minds dimming eye, mom busy getting breakfast going on a cold dark winter morning. On the counter would be the coffee pot plugged in and perking along making that sound that we all remember if our hair is gray or gone. I remembered that commercial, I knew it would be on YouTube. You old timers will know this commercial, that song that Maxwell Coffee makes when it perks. Go ahead and Youtube it, you know you want to hear it again.

AMC's Mad Men has begun its final season, this show is great and it's fun seeing life in the 60's recreated so accurately. At least in my mind and memory.

Life was simple back then and good to the last drop.