Funny – there’s that word again – how I often see the image of my friend Bob and me sitting in those LazyBoy recliners of his, looking out on his expansive back yard down in Lulling LA, I think it was.  We were sipping strong, un-creamed and un-sugared Community dark roast coffee.  Our lives diverged after I parted company with the Baptists but we remained friends and called each other now and then until Bob died of Alzheimer’s a few years ago.  That’s how those memories go.  Once they start there’s no stopping them.

Then there was that moment before our day began when my wife Billie and I would sit, weather permitting, on our little stoop that overlooked the busy intersection of Seminary Drive and Hemphill Street in Fort Worth when we were in school there.  We didn’t say much.  Just sat there sipping that dark roast.  It was a kind of daily meditation seeking some hidden strength to do what we were doing.  If it was cold, we would sit at the kitchen table listening to the morning farm report on the radio.  Now, that’s really funny.

Then, in the true spirit of auld lang syne, I remember that primal cup, that first sip provided by my dear aunt Clara when I was a child on her back porch next door.  Shug, my grandfather, sat there sipping his cup and now I could join him with my own which was doctored with milk and enough sugar to qualify as a candy bar.  We sat in silence.  We sipped our coffee.  When I think of that, I feel truly blessed.

Anyway, it’s funny how the first sip of that dark brew in the morning brings to mind, those vivid images, those tender coffee moments that always included someone I loved.