Today, I had to go to the grocery store. I was out of Coffeemate Hazelnut Creamer.I have always liked coffee but I love coffee with hazelnut creamer. I love hazelnut creamers but my favorite is Coffeemate. I've tried others but keep coming back to my first love.
My Mom and Dad made and drank coffee everyday. Dad would get up and make it every morning. He was an early riser and Mom was a night owl. I remember he would make coffee on the stove. He used the tin looking coffee pots that looked like a pot on the bottom and had a silver shaped bowl on top. The top part was very similar to a drip coffee maker that wasn't invented yet. I wanted to be a coffee drinker because my Mom and Dad were and I thought it was cool to drink coffee. Probably not much different than how some kids want to drink alcohol because there parents do.
My biggest problem with being cool was that I didn't like the taste of coffee. I thought it had a bitter taste to it. Sure I tried to make it taste better by doctoring it up. I added cream and sugar. I still didn't like the taste. It was worse when I added the cream and sugar.
I remember the first time that I knew I was going to be a coffee drinker. I went to watch an Oskaloosa Bear's football game. I wasn't a football player. but I did feel sorry for my friends standing on the sidelines freezing to death. I was bundled up and I was still freezing. I could only imagine how cold they were. I needed something to warm me up and coffee became my new best friend. It was hot and it helped with the cold. I decided I would drink my coffee black. Nothing I added made it taste better, so black it would be.
I drank my coffee black for the next twenty years. I remember when I got started adding hazelnut creamer. I was divorced and I did my laundry at the laundromat mat at 6th and Clay. The laundromat was located next to the Tilton's grocery store and across the street was a Kwik shop. I would go over and get me a cup of coffee to drink while my laundry was washing.
I would guess a cup of coffee at that time was forty-nine cents. I wouldn't pay that for a cup of coffee but they had a deal. If you bought one of their Kwik shop mugs or brought in your own coffee cup you could get a cup for ten cents. I decided for ten cents I ought to try out some of those liquid creamer packets.I started going to Kwik shop on days that weren't laundry days to buy my coffee. This was the end of drinking my coffee black. I loved the taste of hazel nut creamer in my coffee.
Do you ever notice that when we get hooked on something, we want others to try it too? Kinda like a heroin user getting his buddies to start the habit. I was a bad influence on my Mom. She was in the hospital at Stormont Vail. She was there because she had cancer surgery and was recovering. I took her a cup of coffee that I doctored up with three hazelnut creamers. Three is the magic number that you need to get the perfect rush.
She was hooked. She went home from the hospital cancer free but with a new habit. Hazelnut creamer in her coffee. She bought it at the grocery store and always had on or two extra bottles to make sure that she didn't run out. I would go see Mom and Dad and we would sit around and drink our doctored up coffee all day.
My Mom passed away a couple years ago. A cup of hazelnut coffee reminds me of her and our time together. Two hazelnut addicts enjoying our coffee and talking about life. Today, I lift up my cup and take a sip to great times, great memories of Mom and hazelnut coffee.