coffee talk with arlin and sharon

when i was younger, every day when my father got home from work we would sit at the kitchen table, drink a cup of coffee and eat a jelly bread.  the jelly bread was a very complex recipe that only my mom or dad could make correctly.  it consisted of a slice of white bunny bread (MUST be WHITE bread not any of that fancy wheat/potato/nine grain nonsense) with some sort of grape jelly smothered on top.  the bread must then be folded in half vertically.   sometimes, if the eater felt particularly adventurous, one could dip the bread in the coffee until it was so soggy that the top 1/4 would actually separate from the remaining portion of the sandwich and fall into the cup of coffee (the maxwell house brew, of course).    the sandwich/java combo was a perfect supplement to one of our family’s favorite past times:  watching cars go by.    if it was nice outside, we may even sit on the front porch swing and watch cars go by — which added an extra bonus of seeing the cars crest Crosstown hill a quarter of a mile down the road and follow them until they passed by the house.  once the car was in front of our house, one of two things happened:  1) it honked.  which we would respond by saying their name, nodding, and waving.  ex.  “uncle willie”  or “doc” 2) it didn’t honk.  which then would prompt us to say, “who dat?”  or loosely translated, “who is that person that thinks they can drive down our country road with out us knowing them?”.

many precious hours were spent eating jelly bread and drinking coffee.

fast forward a few years and a few thousand miles away in boston.  i got home from work a little early the last two days.  the day still had a few hours of daylight left in it, so i was stricken with an overwhelming desire to have a jelly bread and a cup of coffee.

now, the jelly tasted a little bitter without the front porch swing and the country road and although there were plenty of cars passing by and honking, i found i was saying “who dat?” way more than i was saying “uncle willie.”

however, it was still a nice way to wind up the work day and enjoy a little taste of the past.