Thank Goodness For Mr. Coffee

As I poured my third cup of coffee this morning, I remembered an earlier time when coffee was a bit more difficult and a challenge to make.  I have always used some type of drip coffee maker, a plastic device with a clock and timer built in.  Yet, I think back to the days of the electric percolator and marvel at the process of an earlier time.   The pot consisted of steel and chrome with a plastic resin base with a heater installed.  I remember Dad and his work to create that perfect cup of coffee.  Making coffee each day, it is no wonder the man had the patience of Job.  There were precise steps for making coffee.  The steps had a reason and they had to be followed precisely.

To make that perfect cup, be sure to disconnect the electric cord from the pot.  Getting water in the wiring could short circuit and ruin the pot.  That would mean no coffee for a few days until the broken pot could be replaced.

Next fill the pot with cold water up to the line that was clearly marked with water stains from the many hundreds for previously made pots of coffee.  It had to be cold water.  Luke warm or hot water and you might ruin the heating element.

Pour three heaping scoops of coffee from the Folgers three pound can into the coffee filter.  More than three scoops made the coffee too strong, and less than three heaping scoops and you may as well be drinking dirty water—too weak.

Place the filter in the pot.  This required a certain bit of dexterity and coordination.  The filter was held together by a metal shaft running up through the middle of it.  On the top rested a tin lid to aid the percolation process.  Putting the filter in the pot meant holding this contraption together with your fingers while guiding the metal shaft down to the bottom of the percolator where it would sit snugly in a recessed circle.  All the while, water would do its natural best to float and disassemble the entire filter assembly.

At last, put the lid on the pot and plug the cord first into the pot and then into the electrical outlet. 

While the percolator brewed the perfect cup of coffee, Dad would sit and smoke two, maybe three, cigarettes.  It is no wonder Dad smoked two packs a day.   After the cigarettes, walk outside and get the morning paper.  By then the wonderful smell of nirvana permeated the kitchen.  The coffee was ready.

When that first pot of coffee was drained, a fresh pot was brewed (repeat steps one through six).  Coffee was always present in the house.  Up until ten o’clock at night the coffee pot remained hot, although not always fresh.  At ten o’clock, with the beginning of the news, the pot was unplugged, drained and rinsed.  The filter was rinsed and placed upside down in the dish strainer so that it would dry and ready for service in the morning.

I think back on this and appreciate Dad a little bit more.  I can appreciate the pleasure he must have experienced with the purchase of his first Mr. Coffee.  Even today, I appreciate the wonders of modern technology and my Mr. Coffee.  Every night at ten o’clock I make my coffee.  I still use three heaping scoops of coffee.  Now, I use Starbucks medium blend instead of folgers.  But I set the alarm on the coffee pot and go watch the news.  I wake up the next morning to the smell of a glorious cup of coffee waiting for me.  No patience required, just make the coffee, set the alarm and sleep through the night.

Life IN Boise

Ruth Brubaker (Grandma) was the amazing glue that kept the family together.  Throughout the family history, she is the one constant force, apparent in either the background or leading the charge to live life as a Brubaker.  A well-educated woman, she graduated from the Nebraska State Normal School and began teaching at age 16.  She married Grandpa and raised her large family during the terrible economic times of the 1920s and 1930s. 

An example of  Grandma Brubaker and her inner strength comes from a collection of memories and oral histories, they all tell the story about Grandma and her extended family when they moved to Boise, Idaho in 1937.  In an oral history from Charles Brubaker, Jr, he explained: “We didn’t see dad (Grandpa Brubaker) much because he was on the railroad.  He worked sixteen hours a day, when he worked.  When we moved to Idaho, he was supposed to trade seniority with a guy in Idaho but the guy backed out.   Dad was stuck in Cheyenne while we were in Idaho.”

 

Grandma’s extended family seems huge, and that caused some problems.  In the Boise home the landlord allowed only three children in the house.  “When the landlady came to collect the rent, us kids would have to hide,” dad said. “My uncle was living with us; his wife and three kids; my mom and us eight kids and my brother-in-law.  It was wall to wall people.”

Feeding this huge group was another challenge to Grandma and the rest of the family.  “My uncle and brother-in-law Bill went out to pick fruit,” Dad remembered.  “When they got done the farmer couldn’t pay them (in cash) so he paid them in plums.  We had a whole garage full of plums.  We all ate those plums.  I hate them to this day.”
  

Life in the Boise house lasted only about one year.  In 1938 the family moved to Midway, and later that same year moved into the city of Nampa.  Grandma’s resilience and strength continued to shine through.  But those are more stories to tell at a later time.

Memories of Grandma Brubaker

A few months ago I wrote about a few memories of Grandma Brubaker.  Well, I realized I really don’t know a great deal about Grandma’s personality.  So, I’m trying to collect and remember more about Ruth Harmon Brubaker—Grandma.

Grandma Brubaker died in 1970, when I was about ten years old.  So memories of her are not all that great.  My memories of her start and stop in a hospital.  Whenever we would visit, she was sick.

 

1969 we traveled to Idaho to the funeral of Uncle Bill Brown.  Grandma was in the hospital, possibly in a care facility.  When we went to visit her, we were not allowed to speak of the death of Bill Brown.  It may have been the visit in 1969, or it may have been another time: I remember visiting her, the family gathered around her hospital bed.  Dad is as close as he can get, so that he will hear and understand her mumbled conversation.  I am on the other side of the bed looking at this frail woman.  For some reason, I think my cousin Butch was in the room, standing behind Dad.  He started to make faces at me and I started to laugh.  It was not a nice ride back to Uncle Pat’s house when the visit ended.  I took the heat for that indiscretion.  How could I explain that Butch was making me laugh?  I couldn’t, so I was in trouble. 

A little more than a year later, we were traveling from Salt Lake to Caldwell, Idaho to her funeral.  And the memories are at an end.

I distantly remember her house.  I think we once visited there.  I remember the bathroom because there were no windows and no light switch.  To turn on the lights in the bathroom you had to walk to the center of the room, reach up, find the pull chain and turn on the lights.  That bathroom remains forever burned into my brain, like a traumatic life threatening disaster.

 

Imagine the difficulties of an undersized, most people say short, young man that has to pee.  He knows he can’t reach the pull chain in order to do his business in peace!  At a certain age, no boy should have to ask an older sister for help in using the bathroom.  Let your bladder burst or ask for help, these were the only two choices.  Pride went out the window when first one sister refused to help.  The other helped only when I started to cry in pain.

That bathroom and the trauma it created are both indelibly burned into my brain.

Unfortunately, I don’t much remember Grandma Brubaker.  I have stories from Dad, but otherwise I don’t know her.  If anyone would like to share some stories about Grandma Brubaker, I would really like to visit.  

Dad Liked His Beer

The stories about Dad and his beer usually start by mentioning that after his service in the Navy he spent a lot of time in the Idaho bars.  A favorite hangout was a place called The Schooner.  Although he didn’t have much of a belly at the time, a joke he used often: he would walk up to the bar, stick out his stomach as far as he could and tell the bartender “fill it up!”

My favorite Dad and beer story happened many years later.  When Dad was sick, he had trouble sleeping.  When I came for a visit, I bought a six pack of LaBatts beer to drink.  Dad had stopped drinking beer, at least twenty years earlier.  He claimed he no longer liked the taste of it.  Well Dad was at the table in his wheelchair, and I was standing next to him, slowly nursing a beer.  It seems like the entire family was standing around joking when my sister across the table noticed Dad drinking my beer.  Before she could say anything, he chugged the entire bottle!  It is good thing he didn’t like the taste of it!

That night, for the first time in a number of months, Mom said he slept like a baby.  After that night we kept a supply of beer in the refrigerator to help Dad sleep.  I don’t think he ever drank one of them.  But, for a brief time, he was back in The Schooner, “filling it up.”

Free Association Thoughts about Dad, Dogs, and Cartoons

Something recently came to mind, I was folding some towels when I came across a towel with Snoopy, the character from Peanuts comics.  I remembered how much Dad enjoyed cartoons.  He loved to just contemplate about Snoopy and all of the challenges faced by this one beagle.  Every year we were watching The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas.  Every year Dad would laugh at the very idea of Snoopy climbing into his sopwith camel and flying off to face the Red Baron and finally landing in Linus’ pumpkin patch. 

We once got a small dog, she was supposed to be hunting dog but that never really completely developed.  Dad, I think, wanted to desperately name the dog Snoopy.  He kept suggesting, “Let’s name her Snoopy.”  Us kids kept insisting, no there has to be a better name than that.  Being young teenagers we were oblivious to his wants.  We wound up naming the dog Penny.  

Another cartoon Dad loved was the roadrunner series.  He would really laugh, I mean out load, belly laugh type of laughter, at the road runner and the coyote.  Mom used to tell the story, when her and Dad went to a movie, a road runner cartoon was showing before the feature.  Dad was laughing and waving his arms.  Mom had to move over one seat so the Dad would stop bumping her every time he laughed.

Just some more random thoughts about Dad: he loved his dogs and his cartoons

Trula, My Sister

I haven’t mentioned my brother and sisters because I have adopted a special standard of personal privacy.  I don’t write about anyone that is alive.  That way, no one gets in trouble. 

But, it has been nearly 30 years since my sister Trula has died.  It seems about time to write about her.  But, this is not a simple biography, no dates to hang your hat on.  This is a brief remembrance of a sweet woman.

I have never been able to figure out she got her name.  Mom and Dad could never remember how they came up with Trula, but they did.

Trula was five years older than me.  She was in high school before I was really cognizant of the life around me.  In high school I remember her art work.  She liked to work in clay, throwing pots and other pieces.  A piece that she was particularly proud of was large vase.  It had a glaze that was several shades of yellow.  Inside she had dried flowers and a peacock tail feather.  I remember this pot because I once tripped and my head fell into the dried flowers.  Some bizarre little ball of burrs landed in my eye and I was forced to visit the doctor.  For a week I was soaking my eyeball in warm water and Epsom salts.  At the same time the doctor was picking little slivers out of my eye.  I remember that vase very well!

Physically, Trula was short.  Around her, I felt tall!  But, beyond height, I couldn’t measure up to Trula.  She was hard working and persistent.  After high school, she put herself through college, first obtaining an Associate’s Degree in accounting, they later transferring to a four year college, the University of Utah.   There she acquired her BS in mine engineering. 

The one story I wonder about, but Mom swore that it was true: Dad always wanted an engineer in the family.  Neither John nor I had the interest.  Me, I didn’t have the aptitude.  Well Trula knew Dad wanted an engineer, so she majored in engineering. 

Dad was also proud of Trula and her intelligence.  In her senior year at the University of Utah, she won an award from the Mine engineering Department.  Dad was very proud of Trula, that night.

While she was at the University of Utah, she worked at a credit union.  She helped me negotiate a loan for my first car.  I was able to buy a brand new, metallic blue Chevette with her help.

After graduation she worked in coal mines in eastern Utah and Western Colorado.

Trula was generous to everyone.  During one of the several times that I was unemployed, Trula offered me a place to stay if I wanted to come down and work in Carbon County.  I stayed in Salt Lake, but her house was always open.  

Trula died too young.   She had two young boys. Unfortunately, I have not kept up with these two, but they have grown up into fine young men.   I am certain she is very proud of her two sons and her two grandchildren as well.

Trula was a unique lady.  She was kind, generous, and incredibly intelligent.  To this day, I miss her.

Nicknames Are Interesting

For years the family has marveled at the multitude of nicknames we have had for each other.  Inevitably the nicknames would be credited to Mom and Dad.  I won’t go into any of the names we had for each other, because I don’t want to embarrass anyone.  After all, you probably know as many embarrassing facts about me as I about you.  The threat of mutual embarrassment is an excellent deterrent. 

I want to share one set of nicknames for Mom and Dad.  I found this particular nickname in the letters they sent to each other when Dad was working out of town on the railroad.  Dad was stuck in Ogden, Utah or Idaho Falls, Idaho.  Mom was living in Nampa. 

I don’t know where it comes from.  I had never run across this before.  Mom and Dad called each other “chicken.”  A letter from Dad in July of 1953 starts off with the greeting, “Dear Janie, Hi Chicken.”  In a letter dated a few weeks later, in the body of the letter Mom writes, “I miss you so much chicken.”

I am not exactly sure what this says about Mom and Dad.  But, I thought it was interesting.

Dad's Navy Portrait

My sister Mary sent me this copy of Dad's Navy portrait.  I don't have a date, but I suspect it was done around 1947.  Dad served in the Navy right after high school graduation.  He liked to tell the story about graduating from high school one evening and going down to the Navy enlistment the next morning.  By the time he enlisted the war was over but the draft was still in place.  Dad really didn't want to serve in the Army.  So he enlisted.  The other story about his Navy service, he wanted to serve in submarines but he liked to say that he must have completely failed the psychiatric test because they made him an airplane mechanic!

A detail about his service that not many people know is that he was injured in the Navy.  One day there was an explosion in the hanger Dad was working in.  A piece of flying metal went into his leg.  I was told that he had an ugly scar for the rest of his life.  I was also told the metal stayed in his leg for the rest of his life.  Dad died a few years ago, so I can't (easily) confirm either of these stories.  But, there you go.

Here is Charles Edward Brubaker, Jr. in the Navy!