Have a Cup of Joe

My memories have smells- the differentiated effusions of coffee. As a child it was the smell of all things right with the world.  Apparently, researchers have found that it is also the smell of all things healthy with the world.

Grandfather drank it every day. Summer vacations in Midland or on the road with them for our anual pilgrimage out west were kicked off by a cup of Folgers with light cream hold the sugar. On the road Grandpa would stop for a coffee break- the expectation would be that the kids were to get milkshakes.  Who can argue with that expectation? The waitress would bring the standard white cup brimming with their select brand.  Grandpa would add three creams till it got to be the perfect color of soft carmel then relish in its sweet bitter delight.

My teen years came, it was the drinking of my first cup of coffee that I remember as a earmark of my adulthood. I remember, I desparately wanted to like it, the smell had enchanted me since youth.  The family was on the way to California- another trip out west. Grandpa told me to add a sweetener since I was a beginner.  It was perfection.  I remember the knowing looks that both Grandpa and Grandmother shared...they knew I would be hooked. 

What they couldn't know was that they had started a love affair with a beverage that would cause so many health benefits.  Harvard researchers have recently published a study that shows a lowered risk for diabetes, gallstones, lowering of blood pressure, cholesterol and even that it deters a variety of cancers.  The study does not change much for me...I am not a fair weather friend. I held onto my love for coffee through the years when we thought it caused cancer, I drank it queitly knowing they had to be wrong.  Today I celebrate with the good news that it is healthy.  I raise my cup and say cheers- this one is for Grandpa!