I spent the summer of 1964 studying organic chemistry at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This was on a National Science Foundation Grant for bright high school students. I do not remember how I got it. I guess one of my high school teachers put me up for it. We somehow had time on our hands, so a friend and I got student jobs in the cafeteria, clearing the tables and washing dishes. We wanted the scratch. That is when I got my social security card so even though I lived in Florida at the time, it starts with a 1, for New York. Most people my age in Florida had a 2 on theirs. Social Security numbers are issued regionally.
We’re sitting in the cafeteria at breakfast before the 8 AM lecture which ran for FOUR HOURS!! Then one hour for lunch, and then right back for four hours of lab. We were only 15 years old for gawd’s sake! I am complaining to my friends that I cannot stay awake. One of the guys suggested I drink coffee.
So I got a cup and tried it. I spewed it out!
“That tastes terrible!”
“Have you tried putting sugar and milk in it?”
I did. What a discovery! It tasted like coffee ice cream, which I loved. So began a lifelong relationship (read: addiction) between me and the bean. I like to say it is my only material luxury, good coffee (next to my stamp collection, of course). My father, who drank his back, used to say:
“You don’t drink coffee! You take drugs!”
“You bet I do! Trimethylxanthine!”
I had just spent the summer studying organic chemistry!
Another coffee related memory. My Mom had a stainless-steel electric percolator with a little glass bulb on top so you could see when the liquid became dark, and you knew the coffee was ready. The grounds were held in an aluminum container with small holes in it but apparently NOT small enough to hold in all the grounds. In the bottom of Dad’s cup were these little dark specs and I asked him what they were. He looked at my Mother and I THOUGHT he was saying:
“Grounds for the Boss!”
He was the head of the family after all! Many decades later it came to me. He was saying:
“Grounds for Divorce!”
I have often expressed the opinion that half the comedians in America in the Twentieth Century were New York Jews. It came with the territory.
