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Over Coffee
People often ask me if I have jangled nerves from drinking so much coffee. My answer is always no. Back in the days when I trotted around the globe as a military dependent it seemed all the military wives kept a pot brewing all day. No matter whose house we went to, or at what hour of the day, we could count on somebody asking if we wanted coffee. Those who have spent time shopping in military commissaries know all about the unlabeled silver can. I have no idea what brand of beans “Army generic” holds, but I still remember it as the best coffee in the world.
Over the years, my coffee drinking has slowed way down. The four cups it used to take me to get moving in the morning has gradually been whittled down to one good-sized mug. That means no matter how much I drink later in the day while talking with other coffee drinkers for this column, I’m still way behind my former rate of consumption. And although I’m drinking less of it now, I’m drinking it with new people every week.
Some however, have a ritual: same place, same people. In fact, I recently learned there was a Coffee Club in Sun City Center that has had some of the same unofficial “members” for almost 20 years. Hearing this immediately took me back to my overseas Army dependent days, when much of our social lives revolved around coffee as our collective batch of children wrecked the room around us. So I decided to see who attended this Coffee Club and soon found they have much in common with the coffee clubs I remember, minus the young children racing through the room.
Although the Sun City Center group has changed meeting places several times through the years, its present location is in the small snack bar in Winn-Dixie, located in the back of the store between the deli counter and meats. There, a few tables are clustered together, and on close inspection I realized that although I always thought this was just a place for weary shoppers to rest a few minutes so they could continue filling their carts, in reality, the area serves a much greater purpose.
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| Penny Fletcher Photo |
Roberta Rowe, a local business woman most known for her tireless volunteer efforts with the American Business Woman’s Association, took the lead in introducing me to the other members of the group.
While some days only two or three show up, on others there might be as many as 10 or 12. You never know who’s going to be there. Despite obvious differences in lifestyle, gender, and marital status – some retired, others still hard at work – these coffee-drinkers gradually form a relationship unlike any found in like-minded groups of business associates, golfing buddies or dance partners.
They know if they go to Winn-Dixie between 8 and 9:30-ish any morning of the week, they’ll meet up with friends.
“We can count on each other,” Roberta said, and several nodded in agreement. “We talk about anything and everything.” Remembering the start-up group, Roberta said, “Fern Johnson and her husband, Duane, are both gone now. But Fern could really work a room. She’d be over at one table, then at another. She’s the one who got me involved with ABWA, and well, the rest is history.”
Meeting new people is still an everyday event. The group is anything but “closed.” They say they always try and include new people who sit at other tables in their conversations. Some of them start coming back again and again.
“My husband, Earl, was a coffee drinker,” said Ellen Jackson who moved to the area from Wisconsin in 1977. “I was very involved at Redeemer (Lutheran Church) and he said if I’d go with him to coffee during the week, he’d go to church with me on Sundays.”
Don Schuster said he dropped by one day to meet a friend from Illinois and right away became part of the group. Another regular, who was not present the day I attended, is Roger Artner, assistant manager of the Gibsonton Wal-Mart, Don said. “He moved down to be with his mother and he stayed.” A neighbor of Ellen’s, Roger soon started meeting the group for coffee.
“We’ve changed locations several times, once because coffee was five cents less a cup,” Don said. “Remember Duane, how he used to say, ‘but it’s only money,’ although it was his idea we move?”
The almost daily ritual now includes Norman DeGrishe, Bud Lang and Howard and Terry Hatch.
“I walk every day,” said Howard, who works as a driver on the Sun City Center Minibus. “I got where I’d stop for coffee on my walk. Sometimes Terry spends an hour or so at the Nearly New Shop while I drink coffee and sometimes she comes in with me.”
This group talks about everything. Nothing is taboo: politics, vacations, children, family, government, real estate and business. Past conversations have gone quickly from stocks and bonds to Viagra, Don said.
Sometimes they tell each other jokes. “When we can remember them,” Roberta said. And sitting there, they see a lot of things that make them laugh.
“Like the exercise groups that come in, still dressed from their workout, buying bags of doughnuts,” someone said.
“We make jokes with each other and about each other,” said Ellen. “For some, this is their social life, while others who are busy just stop by.”
The group agreed it is extremely easy to become a member. “All you have to do is show up,” Don said.
* Perhaps you have something you’d like to share. Or maybe you’d rather tell the community about your favorite charity or cause; or sound off about something you think needs change. That’s what “Over Coffee” is about. It really doesn’t matter whether we actually drink any coffee or not (although I probably will). It’s what you have to say that’s important.
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