Vergil’s Coffee

 Some call me “obsessed.”
I’m growing tired of people talking about my coffee. Honestly, it’s none of your business how much coffee I drink or what variation I have in my venti cup. Perhaps a couple of times a week, some yahoo will conclude “You’re obsessed with coffee, you know?”

It’s taxing, these little conversations or pronouncements about my “coffee obsession.” I doubt these folk know what the term “obsession” means anyway as they toss the word around like a stupid toy. For instance, Captain Ahab, I think, gets a bad reputation with his apparent “obsession” of chasing Moby-Dick. Tom Benke also gets pegged with “obsession” or “too much ambition” as he works on that yellow sheet of paper, recording his ideas for better displays in grocery stores in “Contents of a Dead Man’s Pockets.”

You know, is it too much for people to understand that I can just appreciate a good Starbucks grande Pike Place coffee in a venti cup with creamer and four Sugar-in-the-Raw^® packets on a daily basis? It’s not obsession, it’s preference.

I didn’t always like coffee. I think my first coffee experience was when no adults were around and my neighbor-friend Brad Frost suggested that we try some. His father was at work and his mom was at the local grocery store (the local Safeway store in Bennett Valley Plaza). Brad’s family had a microwave oven–the first family on Washoe Court to own one. We quickly found out that the thing was lousy at making grilled chess sandwiches, but was good at reheating coffee and so Brad put a cup of that morning’s coffee and in a moment or so later, we got steaming hot coffee.

It didn’t smell good and Brad suggested that we spruce it up with milk and sugar. We added both until the coffee black drink was now a light Mocha shade and we drank.

Yeah, it was terrible. I remember thinking that this must be an adult drink and that there would probably never be a time when I would like coffee.

Mrs. Frost was at the door and we quickly poured out the rest of the coffee and ran the dry wash cloth over the sugar-coffee-milk mess on the counter beside the microwave oven. Brad tossed the rag in the sink before she asked what we were doing.

“Nothing,” we chorused innocently.

She gave us one of those “I know you’re up to something” looks and told us to get outside and play. We were out the door before she could ask us to help bring the groceries in from the wood-paneled station wagon.

When we got to my garage, we went through the usual “What do you want to do?” business. Fortunately, simply the most exciting movie in the world came out in theaters last summer and every boy across the U.S. (and perhaps the world and the universe) could be found in lightsaber fights everywhere. Or, at least that’s what I thought. And fortunately for us, I had two lightsabers.

See, I think I liked Star Wars a bit more than Brad Frost. I had the Star Wars blanket, the Darth Vader digital watch, the Estes X-Wing model rocket, the complete sets of the first three series of Star Wars trading cards (gum eaten, yes), the radio-controlled R2-D2, the official Star Wars blueprints of various spaceships and droids, a set of Ralph McQuarrie’s concept drawings and paintings, the “Story of Star Wars” album along with the Star Wars soundtrack on double LP set. Oh, and I saw Star Wars twelve times in the theater.

You might say that I liked Star Wars.

But Brad Frost could appreciate a good lightsaber fight and I had written out the script for the final duel scene between Obi-wan Kenobi and Darth Vader from listening to my “Story of Star Wars” album quite a few times. I hadn’t gone through my freakish eight-inch growth spurt yet, so I think we would just switch roles. This time, perhaps, I was Kenobi and we worked through not only the lines but also the choreography from what I had remembered from watching the film those few times.

The lightsabers back then weren’t that sophisticated; they were basically a flashlight with a long translucent tube attached to it. You could even unscrew the flashlight and place a red filter over the flashlight lens to emulate Vader’s lightsaber. It was really cool when we would turn off the garage light and enjoy the glow of our lightsabers.

Unfortunately these were not very sturdy and they often broke or bent whenever you tried to bang your saber against your friend’s.

I thought about Star Wars all the time during sixth grade as seen in my many renderings of Darth Vader, R2-D2, Tie Fighters and X-Wings on and in my spiral-bound notebooks. Each night I would fall asleep to John Williams’ soundtrack on my record player that I bought a garage sale. It was one of those all-in-one units that was mostly white plastic and all of the glorious orchestra sounds were outputted through a 3 inch speaker. Still, I could hear the themes and I would drift into sleep dreaming of Luke and Leia and the Force and space.

My sons like Star Wars, more the later films (the “Prequels” over the “Classics”) and they have quite a collection of lightsabers between them (ones that you can really bang against another lightsaber without breaking). They also have the Lego sets and the Lego PS2 games. There’d be times when I find our oldest just listening to the soundtracks to the newer movies. And I don’t think I have ever thought that Evan or Colin were “obsessed” with Star Wars. From what I have observed, the boys will like something a lot for awhile and then move on to something else.

Neither of them like coffee, though…at least at this point in their lives. And, I haven’t seen them try to sneak a sip of coffee when the adults are away.

I recently read a detailed account of how the first Star Wars movie came about and it’s a story of people spending countless hours pursuing a common goal of making a “long shot” of a film. The book centers around the film’s creator, George Lucas, who was–according to some people’s standards–”obsessed” with making this movie. Human history is made up with many of these “obsessed” men and women who concentrate on one thing and delve deep while excluding normal life. Sometimes, it seems, that the many want conformity from all individuals and there’s a part of me that is happy for those who concentrate and who are not that “well-rounded.” Perhaps it’s those folks that push our imagination.

One of my favorite critiques about my coffee is how bad the stuff is for me. “Did you know how much caffeine is in a cup of Starbucks coffee?” a person might ask. Before I can answer, the quoter is off on a “real fact” accounting of numbers and amounts attached to my coffee. Sometimes I want to tell them that they’re just “jealous” or that a fresh cup of coffee is a gift to myself for the day or that the cup keeps my hands warm. Most of the time I do what Captain Ahab probably should have done more of on board the Pequod: just smile and nod.

At least that’s The Way I See It.