A Few Thoughts for A Monday

 

Book I

 

        Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee? and, again, to know Thee or to call on Thee? for who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? for he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art. Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may know Thee? but how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe without a preacher? and they that seek the Lord shall praise Him: for they that seek shall find Him, and they that find shall praise Him. I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling on Thee; and will call on Thee, believing in Thee; for to us hast Thou been preached. My faith, Lord, shall call on Thee, which Thou hast given me, wherewith Thou hast inspired me, through the Incarnation of Thy Son, through the ministry of the Preacher.

 

 

 

    At our new church, New Life Presbyterian Church, during the Sunday School hour, we are studying an overview of Church History. I will confess that on our first real visit to Sunday School, I sat there in prideful disdain wishing the topic be anything other than that and was thinking I didn't really need to listen because I had graduated from Mercer and had sat through my fill of Biblical and Church related history classes and had done well in them. I feel bad about this. I will only say, I am not a good person; even at my very best. But the more times that we've gone and the more I've listened, the more I'm so very thankful that I am there. And I think I've come full circle into the realization of why history as a subject is so important. In every age. In every time. In every subject. For all people. It is only a fool to be involved in anything and not be fully interested in the history of whatever it may be. And the level of importance of the event, club, movement, etc, then the level and need to know it's history should also increase.

 

    In 2015, it may be widespread where you see so many who want to cast off the burden of history and walk free from it, but that couldn't be anymore foolish. As it is known and quoted often, to the fools who refuse to learn and acknowledge history, their punishment is to repeat it again, or worse, have to live through it again. I know so many people who hated their history classes and I know why and get that. Most history classes focus on dates and people, which are important, but miss the opportunity to teach movements, patterns, and thoughts. And this last part is so very important for one major reason, humans from Adam and Eve till now have and will not change and it is so very interesting and vitally important to study the men and women that came before us. Each generation becomes absorbed within itself and the time it lives within and so quickly forgets what came before them and becomes historically egotistical. We all become this. It is all too easy to be. It is easy to look around and say that no time has ever been so progressive, free, burdened, evil, loathsome, critical, etc. and forget that as time moves forward, all times within history have been exactly the same because the main element within human history, humans, have remain unchanged. No, we don't speak exactly the same, or look exactly the same, or for that matter do anything exactly the same, but we are humans and humans have basically remained the same. All I'm really saying is that the thoughts you have today, were had by someone of the same status hundreds of years ago. Yes, that is weird and no, they weren't exactly the same, but they were at their very core the same. I'm in no way making light of those thoughts. They have been thought too many times to think that way about them. They are the very thoughts of humanity. It should be what binds us so wholly and closely together, rather than divide us.

 

   And that is the very importance of history whether you hear it spoken of hundreds of times or for the first time. History is what binds us. The greatest thing that confronts us in this modern age, in my smallest and unimportant opinion, is not weather changes, drought, loss of freedom, governments, economics, extremism, or anything of the sort, but rather it is this ever increasing need for individuality in the face of all circumstances. It is an impossible task and one that is nothing short of a true fools errand. In the heat of battle, there are no individuals. In the middle of the greatest of joys, there are no true individuals. In the greatest of defeats, there are no true and bold individuals. And in the greatest victories, there are no courageous individuals. There are only humans left standing there and either winning or losing, or laughing, or crying. There is only the community. There has always been community and there will always be community.

 

    I know this is starting to sound like a, "one people, one world", post, and that is not the point. The only point is we all need our histories and people's histories are no different than anything else. There are those moments when we rise so very high and become the greatest visions of that part of Creation that was formed within the image of God and then there are the moments where we too would have lost the right to exist within the Garden and become the vilest of human beings. And this is why we must listen and study the history of who we are and what we are involved in. We are slowly, but ever so rapidly becoming what we will be remembered for. And that is true for us as individuals and for us part of larger wholes. And just because we decide we are not part of a certain part of history does not mean that, that is actually true and it is also true that all people are forming history. We cannot exist without it, be removed from it, or act separate from it. There are all those who came before and what they did, they said, how they acted, or didn't act, what they wrote, what they struggled with, what they used their power to do, it all means something and it all effects us in all we do. We are all shapes of what has come before us.

 

   We must not forget what has come before us or we forget who we are. We must not look at those in the past and wonder why and how did they struggle so. We must not look at them in our present lenses of life and history and say how wrong and blind they were. All of those things will be thought about us by those who are coming. We are currently shaping who they will be. That terrifies me.

 

    We must not also join the hordes within the current Church who look back at all the tragedies, fights, schisms, crusades, racism, sexism, etc. and question why and how could they have been so and attempt so hard to distance themselves from the past and try to pretend like they can exist alone in the here and now while all they claim to believe and support came about at the hands of men and women who struggled and fought and disbelieved and had faith in the process of what it takes to make a movement. And these are the same things we are struggling through and amongst. Ask yourself if you'd be willing to believe something or put faith into something that wasn't a struggle. If you were wise, you'd quickly say you wouldn't be interested. This is our history. And a lot of it is ugly, but it is all so very important. There has always been this giant and monumental struggle to attempt to shape an earthly version of God's Kingdom on earth. It has been done wisely at times and it has been done with the most sinful of ambition and motive. We cannot and should not separate those items. There are very valuable lessons to be learned from both and neither side is perfect. There is only one true Kingdom and it is here and it is coming. We the ones who wander and attempt to live in the already and not yet. And we are not alone in this. This has been all humanity that has been and is yet to come.

 

     Augustine of Hippo wrote, The Confessions, sometime between 397 and 400 AD. They were applicable then. They were applicable a thousand years later. And now 1617 years later, they are still a wealth of wisdom that we so badly yearn to hear today because we have not changed. All truth is still God's truth and it is still so very hard to contemplate and think about higher thoughts and it is a struggle to contemplate truth, beauty, goodness, love, etc. within the realm of the constantly changing definitions of a modern world. It was hard for Augustine. It was hard for Luther. It was hard for Spurgeon. It is hard for us. It will be hard for all those who come after us. They shaped us and we are shaping them. May we struggle to do it wisely and carefully.

 

DAVID

        

My Night with the Ben Hill Hash House Harriers



          This past Monday night, FH and I headed out to meet up with a group of folks who call themselves the Ben Hill Hash House Harriers. They are a running group, but not the type you'd ever find training around an oval track, running repeats of any sort, comparing race times, talking running shoes, bragging about training techniques, discussing the Daniel's Formula, or ever even using the dirty "r" word: race. "Hashing" as it is called is not about racing, it is about chasing. Hashing, or at least the game it was modeled after, is a very, very old pastime; older in fact, than the very country we live in. Hashing was derived from the game, "Fox and Hounds" or "Hares and Hounds", that was played in England, Ireland, and Scotland as early as the early 1700's. Those games became somewhat official in the early 1800's and hashing was officially founded by an Englishman in 1937 who was stationed in Malaysia.

The Ben Hill Hash House Harriers gather, sip, and gab before the hash. 

      If you have never had the privilege of playing chase, I'll say sorry first and then I'll give you a quick primer. One person takes off and everyone attempts to catch that person. In the case of "fox and hounds" or "hares and hounds", one person plays the role of the fox or the hare and takes off marking their trail in some noticeable fashion, with paper, flour, leaves, paint, etc. and in due time, the "hounds", the other people, give chase and attempt to find the trail and then in the end attempt to catch the fox or hare. Hashing follows the same basic format. And in most places the trail is marked by flour. And each mark is left behind with a certain purpose to tell the pursuers something specific about the direction in which they are going or should be going. Here is an example of a few known marks:

     In the case of marking the trail, the fox or hare will attempt to lead the pursuers in a totally wrong direction and hoping they lose their way or "lose the scent". And if you've ever watched an animal, except a raccoon, or actually hunted an animal, they do not choose a linear path or one that is easy to follow, it is a trail that goes in, around, over, through, and under anything and everything. It is a path or trail of pure fleeing. And that is the type of path or trail that is marked by the proverbial fox or hare.

The first mark at the beginning of the hashing trail.

    Hashing isn't exactly the same as the old game of fox and hare, but it is very close. Hashing is a mixture of running and socializing; much more socializing than running and it is never a race. And training for the hash is greatly looked down upon. Hashers meet weekly or biweekly and run a course that may vary in length, but usually ranges from about three miles to some over five or six. There are thousands of hashing groups around the country and around the world. Each hashing group that affiliates themselves with the "hash house" title attempts to affiliate themselves with the original hashers who were far away from home and tried to find community and oneness in around a national pastime. The "house" part refers to an old English tavern frequented by expatriates, where they would meet up in Malaysia and the "hash" part refers to the food served at the tavern. I think this part is really neat, but I'm a sucker for traditions like that. The modern hashers that continue to meet, run, and socialize today are really only doing what the original hashers did almost a hundred years ago.

A flour mark showing us we're on the right trail.

     But...I will be quick to add that hashing is not for the faint of heart, or the closest Baptist in the room, or your favorite Prohibitionist. It is a social running club like no other. One of the tag lines I have seen used to describe hashing is that they are a drinking club with a running problem. The closest thing I can compare it to is maybe if a whole bar went running one night and brought the alcohol, the music, and the craziness with them. And if the drinking doesn't offend you, then the route of the hash will make you double-think about why you are there. The hasher that is chosen to mark the trail usually chooses the hardest, muddiest, wettest, thickest, oddest trail they are able to mark. They will bypass many easy and accessible ways in order to make those who are chasing them crawl under trees, through briars, through creeks, over fallen trees, across rivers, over rock ledges, etc. The only let up from the chase is that for all the hard chasing, there will be a beer stop about every mile or so. And at the end of the trail, there will always be a party of sorts to enjoy.

FH riding shotgun on the craziest jog we have ever gone on. 

   And all this brings me to last Monday night, but as should be expected, it goes back further than that for me. When we moved to Fitzgerald in June, I was driving my car through town one night as it was getting dark and came up an odd group of adults running through people's yards and one guy was carrying a flag and I rolled my windows down and tried to follow them for a bit and see what they were up to and they were yelling and whistling to one another and seemingly trying to follow something I just couldn't see. I should have looked down instead of around. I probably would have seen a small patch of flour nearby. I went back home after the group disappeared into a dense section of woods and asked my inlaws about the group and they tried to tell me a little about the group, but made it sound like Mowgli from the Jungle Book had started a little running club and I guess that really isn't that far-fetched. I kept asking around and eventually stumbled upon the name of the club and after some internet searching came upon the Ben Hill Hash House Harriers; who were founded in 1985 and have been dedicated to hashing since then. And later that summer, while on a bike ride with FH and some students, came upon the group assembled in full fashion getting ready to head out and chase the trail.

This is the point in the hash when FH and I moved into second place and were heavily into the chase!

    I really wanted to join them someday, but between school, XC, and just life in general, I never found the time and then this past Monday, that changed. FH and I had a free night and Mel had a few things that she had to have finished before the next day, so we loaded up the jogging stroller and headed to the meeting place. Every two weeks, the Ben Hill Hash House Harriers meet downtown Fitzgerald behind the Modern Appliance building at 6:30 pm and then head out together to the head of where the trail has been marked. FH and I got there on time, but had to wait around till around 6:50 before a soul showed up. A few cars showed up and then had us get back in our car and follow them to a place called, "The Brewery". It was actually more a shed where some beer was brewed a long time ago by a bored bachelor, but rumor has it that they are going to get brewing there again soon. The crew had already assembled behind The Brewery and were talking of past events and money was collected for the beer that was to be shared. And with the talking and catching up also came the first of many beers. I found this to be very funny and very odd. I have been running for almost twenty years and I can honestly say that save milk, beer, may be the beverage I hope to never have to drink and then be made to run. But beer is almost a central character to a proper hash experience.

Short cuts and more advantageous paths are not frond upon during a hash. If you are behind and see where the leaders are running, nothing says you can't cut a lot of corners and head them off. Trying to be first doesn't benefit one during a hash much. We learned this the hard way! FH and I were first several times only to be dropped by those behind us. 

     After the leader, known and referred to as, The Grand Marshall or GM, decided all had arrived that were coming and the last of the initial beers have been polished off, the GM sounded off a whistle that he carried around his neck and the group assembled in the front of The Brewery and the first point on the trail was arrived at and they all yelled, "On Hunt" and the chase was on. FH dove into his stroller and we just tried to keep up. The trail went up one street, crossed a busy highway, went down a muddy alley, through a field and into a parking lot, through a church lawn, through a high school practice field, over a creek, through a little league field, behind the town's radio station, down the side of another busy highway, through another church yard, through another field, but this one was very muddy, over and through another creek, and through some of the thickest brush I have ever run through, over three fallen trees, down a muddy dirt road, and right to a barn known by the group as, "Mr. Bill's Golf Cart Barn", and then we stopped, whistles were blown, and odd things were yelled by the GM to those hashers who had taken the false trail. I was sweaty, dirty, wet, and out of breath. Pushing a stroller through all of that was crazy! And FH looked at me like what had we really gotten into, but the barn we stopped at was more of a golf cart graveyard than anything else, so he got out of the stroller and took a look around. While we sipped some water and looked around, the rest the hashers made it to the BN, or the beer near spot, and more beers were had and more stories were told. One of the men there was telling some great stories about him getting older and then they all kept laughing about one guy who wasn't allowed to come for awhile because his wife had laid down the law because he had really overdone it at a previous hash. FH and I listened in as we climbed on an old trailer and drank our water.

Follow the leader; especially if he is called the Grand Master and also serves as a standard bearer for local Civil War reenactments. 

Calling in all who had gone the wrong way on a false trail. 

    After about 10-15 minutes, the whistle was blown by the GM and again the chant of, "on hunt" was shouted" and we were off. The trail followed a muddy dirt road, and then through several people's yards, and down the side of another busy road, through the parking garage of a nursing home, and after about a little over a mile, another BN marking was spotted and the group stopped for yet another round of beers and conversation. FH and I joined the conversation, but we also walked around the place we had stopped checking out a few things and then we finished our water while we climbed on yet another golf cart. We had run almost 2.5 miles at this time of the chase. And at this point you maybe thinking that only old "frat" guys who haven't grown up yet partake in this type of stuff, but you'd be very wrong. Within the BHHHH group and most all hashing groups a wide age range can be seen as well as both sexes. And this also goes for the socioeconomic status of the hashers as well. This night there were two women, pregnant no less, and guys ranging from their 20's to their 70's.

The beer, laughter, and stories were flowing at the first BN spot. 

    After about the same duration of time, the same whistle was blown, but this time, the chant of, "On In" was shouted and signaled. "On In", means that the hashers are to make their way back to the beginning of the trail by whichever path they'd like to follow. FH and I cut through several yards of people we know and made it back to The Brewery first. I'm sure that attitude would be looked upon. I loaded the stroller up and we went inside The Brewery for a time, but all that was left of the hash was the party aspect and FH and I headed home to eat dinner with Mel. I am pretty sure that was for the best.

Our leader leading us well. It is about the chase, not the race. 

    I am not really sure how I feel about my whole experience. I'll definitely go again. I'm not sure I'll bring FH, but I probably will. I will say it was fun. And it was very different. And it was also oddly refreshing to join up with a group of people to run, but have the focus be on other things. It was as if the almost four miles we ran was a distant side product of the night. I don't love the drinking aspect, but don't find any harm in it for now. I am not a beer or drinking kind of guy, but I'm also not offended by those who are. Some people are beer people and I happen to be an ice cream guy.

The infamous, BN, mark signaling that the beer is near. 

    I don't know if I'll ever really get into the whole hashing scene, but I definitely liked the whole chasing and following the trail aspect. I also loved how the trail wasn't linear or fixed. I liked the running through water, over trees, through backyards, and through the woods. It reminded me of how kids run through the woods. It also reminded me of the old type XC races that used to be put on. XC is quickly becoming a sport where the courses are becoming more and more manicured and less challenging so the times can be faster. I'm not a fan of that. I'd much rather watch a kid run a 25 minute three mile race knowing he or she had to jump trees, cross through water, and run a quarter mile in knee deep mud and was still able to keep up an eight minute mile rather than watch a kid trot a 14:50 5K on a gravel path with no real hills or obstacles. The latter is a little boring. It's why they have a whole sport called track. And it's also why no except those who have to be there comes to a track meet.

Time to take it to the house!

     I plan on being back behind the Modern Appliance building at 6:30 or so in two weeks and I'm looking forward to it. Don't worry, I won't write another post about it. That is unless something amazing happens. Well, I believe it is time to chant, "On In", and take this post back to the house.

Happy running, hashing, and reading,

DAVID
  



A Poem

Primeval Ambulations

Light into darkness,
Aurora into obscurity,
Dayspring into eventide,
Breathe into vapor,
Sound into silence,
Motion into stillness,
Footprints into dew-laden grasses,
Life into the quietly awakening,
Words into emotions,
Seconds into moments, 
Beginnings into endings,
Rising into setting,
 Future into present,
All things into the past.

                                                   --February 2015

The Official Coffee of The Otter Creek Camphouse

      I have liked in or many cases loved coffee for a very long time. Now, I won't claim to be a coffee connoisseur or anything of the sort and I definitely won't claim to have the sophisticated palette necessary to be a paid expert in the act of coffee cupping (or "tasting" to us lay folks). I'm pretty sure my palette couldn't even spell sophisticated if palettes could spell. It likes Waffle House too much to be able to do that. But, I do love coffee. I will also say that I really do wish coffee tasted
 like it smelled; that would be truly amazing. However, I have never found that to be the case no matter the place, price, roasting or brewing technique, etc. I will also quickly say I don't know everything about coffee, but I do know a little about how it is grown and what is required to grow it, but have read in the past few months about people growing it in places where I never thought coffee would grow. I also know a little about how the coffee bean is harvested and then how it makes it's way from being a fruit, the coffee cherry, into the very recognizable "bean" that we all know.

A coffee orchard in Hawaii.

          And for those who don't know much about how coffee makes its way from where it is grown to the confines of your morning cup, I'll give you a very quick and simple primer. I picked most of it up from reading and listening to things here and there over the years, but here are several neat "coffee" websites: Coffee Crossroads, The Coffee Review, and Fair Trade USA. And if you already know about coffee, you probably know much more than I do. Coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia and has been enjoyed by humans since the tenth century. Most all coffee is grown at high altitude, in rich, dark soils, that receives plenty of rainfall, but not all coffee has to be grown this way, but most is. The main variable for growing coffee is that it must be grown in a region where the temperature doesn't vary too widely or where there are no weather extremes. However, most coffee is grown in South America, mid-Africa, and several parts of Southeast Asia with the country of Brazil producing the largest crop in the world.

A clump of ripe coffee cherries.
      

      As seen in pictures above, coffee is usually grown in a grove, much like oranges, apples, pecans, etc. A tree, of either two main varieties, produces a fruit referred to as a cherry, several times a year. And odd item about the coffee tree is in how often the cherry is produced on the tree. A mature coffee tree can produce ripe cherries as often as 3-4 times a year, so it is possible for there to be blooms, developing cherries, and ripe cherries all on the same tree. The coffee tree is an evergreen and holds onto its large, waxy leaves all year long. And as already mentioned, most coffee farms or plantations are in places where the elevation is above 1000 ft. The famous coffee's of Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Hawaii, and Costa Rica are all grown in the regions of those countries that contain its highest mountain ranges.
 

The interior of a coffee cherry. The "bean" we roast and brew our coffee from is actually the seed or pit of the coffee cherry.

      The fruit that is produced by the coffee tree is called a cherry. It is an edible fruit and in the countries where coffee is grown, they also use the cherry to produce juices and other food items from the edible fruit. But...But...But this post is not about that really. It is about our official daily coffee, so I'll try to get to that a little more quickly! But let's finish the harvesting bit first.

      Once the cherry is harvested, it is either chosen for it's use as a fruit or it's to be used to produce the beverage we call coffee or in Spanish, café. Once it has been chosen to be used for coffee production, the cherry is washed and then dried out in several different ways. And once it is dry, the outer part of the cherry is discarded and the seed or pit of the cherry is saved. This is very similar to what we all think of when someone eats a regular cherry; except that the pit is saved for growing a new tree or thrown away rather than for use to make coffee with. The seed of the cherry that is produced by the coffee tree is what will eventually become the "bean" that we all equate with the beverage we call coffee.

A sample of dried and roasted coffee beans.

        Once the seed has been removed from the fleshy part of the cherry fruit, it is set aside and put through another round of drying techniques which may include time in a drying oven. And then depending on the brew that the coffee will be used for, it is roasted till it appears burnt, which is what gives it that classic, dark appearance that we are all familiar with. The darker the bean, the longer it was roasted, but this does not actually mean anything when it comes to bean's caffeine content. The lighter the bean or the lighter the roast, the more caffeine content that the coffee will hold and vice versa. This last bit is not what we usually think; especially since espresso comes from one of the darkest roasts for the coffee bean, but the caffeine content of espresso has to do with proportions and brewing techniques rather than roasting procedures.



      My love for "coffee" products has traveled the taste spectrum as far as coffee products are concerned, but I would say that I've been a coffee lover since I was in elementary school. Now when I was in those elementary school days, I wasn't guzzling that cup of joe every morning as a ritual, but would occasionally get to drink a cup while staying with my father's parents and always felt so grown up when I held my cup and drank it with my grandpa in the early morning hours before everyone else was awake. My coffee consisted of milk that had a hint of coffee in it and it sort of stayed that way for a longer period of times than I'd like to say. After those days, I drifted into the sweet and flavored drinks that also had a hint of coffee in them, but about five years ago or so, my desire for flavors and sweet tasting coffee fled me and now, I'm a dash or so of half and half and mostly coffee guy. I don't think I'll make it to the "strong and black" stage that a lot of people pride themselves as being, but I do like the coffee to be strong and taste like it is supposed to rather than the many favored varieties than many people like. And I'm not a decaf guy like so many I know. I don't actually get this, but I also don't get the non-alcoholic beer thing either, but that isn't a topic in this post. Caffeine never really does much for me really. I just like a hot beverage in the morning or with dessert. I could drink an espresso and then go to sleep, but that could be because I have a two and half year old and nothing to do with caffeine content.

    Coffee is actually very important to us and is how we, Mel and I, like to begin each day. The days we look forward to the most are the days that contain the slowest of mornings where we can leisurely drink several cups of coffee a piece and move into the day rather than dive headlong into it and sprint the whole day through. 99% of the time, we live in the second type of day. And, we are also pot coffee people. I know the trend has been the Keurig machines where you can choose to have that wonderful single cup of coffee, but we don't drink a cup of coffee, we drink cups of coffee. And to add to the specialness of coffee,  we actually went to a coffee shop after dinner on our first "official" date. Mel ordered hot chocolate and I ordered some drink titled something like, The Edge, or something like that. It was a flavored coffee. My how things have changed!

    Ever since we have been married, I have been on the search for the perfect coffee brand to call "our" coffee. And believe it or not, I have tried to be somewhat methodical about my approach to this in the same way you'd attempt to study something using the infamous Scientific Method. I started out just sort of buying this brand and then another one after we had gotten married and when money was a little easier to come by. I originally made it my goal to buy a pound of coffee from independent coffee houses we would go to and enjoy their coffee, but this isn't a normal thing for most people or at least people where we live or have lived. Rather, most people are stuck with the brands at their nearby grocery stores.  So, I guess, I'll finish this post in much the same way I make my students write out their "Scientific Method Projects" each year when we study it. Here we go:

1. Problem or Observable Phenomenon:

     Mel and I like coffee. We enjoy drinking it seven days a week. We need a coffee that you can be purchased in a larger quantity than a single serving, can be found in a wide variety of places, and can be found at an agreeable price.

2. Questions:

     How much coffee do we actually go through in a week? A month? How much can we afford to spend? Can we find this coffee in a wide variety of places? Is there a brand that offers an economical coffee that isn't roasted and prepared the same way as brands like Folgers's, Maxwell House, etc.?

3. Hypothesis:

    Knowing that we like the darker roasted coffee varieties and knowing that we usually go through about 2-3 lbs. of coffee a month, I believe we would need to settle for an economical, espresso or French Roast varieties. I'm not completely sure about the brand that we'll like, due to the large quantity of brands at the local supermarket.

4. Tests and Collection of Data:

     I have tested this for over six and a half years. When we were first married, we bought coffee at will and price was not really a concern. When we moved to Macon in 2008, we had decided that we'd like to buy at least a pound of coffee a month from our favorite coffee shop and it cost us about $16 a lb. I tried so hard to get us to like Community Coffee because it stood out as the lone, "Southern" brand, but Mel and to be honest, I did not take to it. We both love Starbucks (go ahead and snicker, we're typical white folks drinking our "Bucks" and driving our single child to a state park in our Subaru.) and our favorite blends of theirs are, French Roast, and their, Pike Place Blend. However, not everywhere sells Starbucks coffee and as of two years ago, it seems a little crazy to spend almost $30 a month on coffee that we brew at home. We also really like Jittery Joe's coffee, a small Georgia coffee company, but their pound coffee is almost $15 a pound. I have also had Intelligentsia Coffee and it is very good, but it should be at almost $20 a pound.

     So, after many years, and many, many purchases, we finally settled on the type of coffee that fit all our needs and wants. If I were to go with you to your local supermarket, somewhere like Publix, Kroger, or Wal-Mart, I really could tell you how almost every variety of coffee that they offer tastes or which other type it could be compared to. I'm in no way bragging. I am only trying to let you know that we really did try almost every brand that is offered at a normal grocery store; so much so that Mel begged me about a year ago to just settle on a single brand. And so I did, and the brand we chose is....

The bright yellow bag of Café Bustelo!

  

5. Conclusion:

 



          We chose Café Bustelo for a variety of reasons and here are a few. Café Bustelo is a dark roasted coffee made from Arabica coffee beans. It brews a strong, robust beverage that is medium to high in it's caffeine content. And the price is just right, at around $3-$4 dollars for 10 oz. ,it is a great deal. It is one of the cheapest coffee varieties on the coffee aisle. And actually right now, you can buy 2.5 lbs. or 40 oz. of Café Bustelo for just shy of $20 at Wal-Mart. I know, I know, evil Wal-Mart. I'll start shopping somewhere else when teachers in America start making the same as shift managers at McDonald's or Chic-fil-a. That's a great price considering it is just a few dollars shy of a single pound of your favorite Starbucks variety And often times, you can catch a, "2 for $6", sale or sometimes even cheaper. And although, Café Bustelo is made from Arabica coffee beans, like Folgers's and Maxwell House, just from a single cup, you can tell that a higher grade of bean was used in its preparation. And to sort of seal it's acceptance as "our" coffee, Café Bustelo can be found in all three grocery stores in the town we live in and when we lived in Macon, it could be found in every grocery store there save one.

      And to make things even better, Café Bustelo has a pretty good history. It is coffee that is labeled a "Cuban" coffee, which describes how it is roasted and the rich and dark brew that it yields, but it could also be called that since it was founded by a Spanish immigrant who went to Cuba to learn the coffee business, married a Cuban lady, immigrated to New York via Puerto Rico, and started his own coffee business in the area of NYC known as Spanish Harlem using the methods he had learned in Cuba. And by 1931, Café Bustelo had fans that reached far past the perimeters of East Harlem. I'm not sure if its popularity had reached The Peach State, but I know it has today.

Café Bustelo is for lovers, right?

 

 

    I'm pretty sure we'll keep using Café Bustelo for quite awhile. It is easy to find, fits our budget, tastes great, is consistent in taste and price, and beats the majority of coffee's of equal or greater value. If you ever stop by Otter Creek Camphouse and find a warm mug of coffee sitting in from of you on a lazy Saturday morning, you can probably rest assured that it's Café Bustelo and there is a whole pot of it waiting to be drunk and plenty more of it to brew in case one pot is not enough.

 

   I know there are many other varieties of coffee. I know because we've tried them once or probably, more than once. Yes, Publix brand coffee is great, but you can't get it cheaper than $6. Yes, Starbuck's roasts great coffee, but a pound is going to run you at least $8 if it's on sale and $8 won't buy you anything where we live. A pound of the ole' Bucks starts at $11 where we live. And yes, you can buy 30 pounds of Folgers for about fifty cent, but tell me the last time you've enjoyed a cup of that. And please don't tell me about the fair trade varieties. Yes, I'm a believer in that, but I'll jump straight for a cup of fair trade coffee when I see you at a rally marching for the fair trade of Apple products, J Crew clothes, or your Kavu purse. Give Café Bustelo a try. I know you'll like it. And if you don't, then you're only out $3; which is $6.50 less than your last movie ticket on the 300th installment of the Fast and Furious or the Expendables 35. I'm pretty sure they brought John Wayne and Charlie Chaplin back for that one, but it actually would have been better if they'd had done so.  

 

 

 

   Happy reading, happy brewing, and happy, slow Saturday mornings full of coffee, good food, and time to watch more than one episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or time to eat a long breakfast outside and let the morning fade into the afternoon.

 

 

DAVID

A Funny Discovery

 * I told you, my loyal readers, that some short post where on the way. Here is my attempt at putting one out. Enjoy and if you don't, at least it's short.

Ganadora descalificada por tramposa en un maratón de Estados Unidos

La corredora debería haber batido el récord mundial de media maratón en la segunda parte de su carrera para hacer el tiempo con el que ganó.

      

---

                                                       www.jdaviddark.blogspot.com

 

    The internet is an odd, odd thing. I know you can say that about a billion times and then a billion more times. A few nights ago, my own sweet Melissa was using our home computer and I had just published a post here and I was trying, in a very narcissistic way, to find out if anyone had read it yet and I was doing so on my phone and I typed in my blog address into the address bar and instead of going to the address, it went to Google and up came a search of all things: www.jdaviddark.blogpost.com. There were 5750 of these. How is that and why is that?  Many of the items didn't surprise me to see. There was my actual blog and one of my recent posts and then there was my old Twitter account that I can't remember my password for, for the life of me. There were also several links to Pinterest where folks had taken pics from my posts and "pinned" them. This kind of made me feel good. And there were somehow links to far too many of my Instagram likes. This made me feel a little sheepish about "liking" photos on Instagram for a small moment. There was also a link to a company called, Alexa, which keeps track of the amount of traffic coming to your site and found out that of all the sites on the internet, my blog, The Darkroom, is ranked 2,405, 924th out of all the websites on the world wide web. I think that's crazy and it makes me a little happy. Who would have thought! As you can see, I celebrate even the smallest of things. I have to and you should to. However, the oddest or most laughable item that I saw on the first few pages of links was the above. It came straight off a Spanish website, Atletas. The title, intro, and picture from a little story about marathon running and the experiences of two Latino runners who ran the 2010 Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon; the same marathon I ran that same year. But the picture is not of them at the race, it is of me finishing the race. I'm the guy in white on the left. I got the Spanish teacher at the school I teach at to read the story to me and some of the lines they used were oddly similar to what I wrote in my recap of that race on this here blog. I'm not offended or anything of the sort. I just think it is pretty funny that Spanish speakers the world over who might read that story have to see a pic of me running that my wife took and sort of read my words. I think that is pretty funny and a little odd. There was a also a similar Spanish website called, bodygeek, that used a lot of my post about Plantar Fasciitis, for their post about the same thing. I don't mind, but I once again, think it is odd and funny.

    I guess the best thing I could really say to end this post is for those of you out there blogging away and "surfing" the Net: be careful. You never know where your words or opinions may find themselves being used at or by whom. I know I'll be thinking about that for sure. But it will also make me think that someday, one of my posts may be read by some person in Argentina and they may be reading my words on some other site, "written" by someone else. We live in a weird, weird world!

Happy reading and even happier writing,

DAVID