I want some coffee!

I'm referring to ' the good ol' days ' long before my time here on planet Earth. Days when Asians (from what is now Russia) first arrived here in what is now the USA. I promised myself I would write this piece in mid-2023. I did such a crap job I set it aside to try again another day. Maybe this is 'another day'... Before we Euro-transplants populated these United States, Canada, Mexico and all the other countries and states we see today in the Americas - from near the North pole to near the South pole - these lands were populated by what we refer to today as indigenous peoples. And according to academics who study those theoretical populations, those early residents probably arrived from Europe and Asia thousands of years before there were calendars. I recently heard on NPR that the earliest human settlements in what is now the United States may date as far back as 40,000 YBP*... something like 42,000 years ago. To my limited exposure to our ancient history the...

This is a unique family story. And it requires some background about the roll of churches and our US government during the 1700s through the early 1900s as it pertains to Native Americans. First the family story... In the late 1800s, I think it was about 1896, my paternal g-m Ida Frances Penn Bowman was living in south-central Arizona. The Penn family was living in or near Silver King which is in Pinal County about 70 miles due east of Phoenix and about 3 miles north of Superior, Arizona. From 1870 until about 1900 Silver King was an active silver mine and my Penn relatives lived there (or perhaps close by; photos at the time show small buildings which may not be houses). Stacey Penn worked for the mine as a teamster moving silver ore via horse drawn wagon. As I understand it he owned his own horses and wagon(s), so possibly he was an independent contractor to the Silver King Mine. Ore wagons hauling silver ore to the Silver King Mine stamping mill. Maybe Stacey Penn's wagon &...

In the 1800s, wagon trains were an aggregation of travelers going to the same or nearby locations in a distant part of the country via (ta-dah!) t eam-drawn wagon. We've seen the movies that depict that group travel, helping one another to get thru the pain of crossing the United States at a time when there were no roads. All the while carrying with them everything they owned, or more likely only what they needed once they arrived. As I understand it, a very large number of wagon trains started in the vicinity of St Louis, Missouri. A capable leader was located and that person received a sum of $$ to guide the train across difficult country. On occasion that required passing through territory controlled by one or another of the Native American tribes who cared for and hunted on that land. Not many of those tribes were happy about the trespass especially if one or more of the travelers had had enough and decided to stay right where they were, squatting on traditional tribal land. My...

Every family probably has stories like this. My father and I thought it was a hoot but my sainted mother had a different view! My mother was named Doris Agnes Ross. Agnes, her middle name, was chosen out of respect for her aunt, Agnes Ross Davey. How her parents came to choose her first name, Doris, was a mystery to me. And to her as well- no clue how it came to be chosen. But in about 1945 my mother learned Doris wasn't really her birth name. My parents married in the '30s and I arrived on the scene about 4 years later while we were residents of California. Then in 1942 (I think!) we Bowmans moved to Reno, Nevada. That was just after the start of WW-II and men were disappearing into the Army, Navy and Marine Corps both by volunteering and by being drafted. And yes, the Navy and Marine Corps received some of those draftees during WW-II (the Air Force didn't exist till after WW-II- during WW-II they were the Army Air Corps and were part of the Army). My father was drafted in...

This coming November 2023 I will have been roasting coffee for 2 decades. I started with a fluid bed (hot air) roaster - something akin to a popcorn popper - that barely roasted enough for 2 cups of coffee. I found it at Sweet Maria's which became my coffee mecca: roasters, brewers, whatever- they had all things 'coffee' and especially green beans. Lots of different greens to choose from.  I met the founder and owner early on when we drove over one Saturday morning from San Francisco. I wanted to ask if I was grinding coffee appropriately for expresso. Thompson Owen was deadly serious about coffee and probably the most knowledgeable coffee guru I've ever had access to. The business is named for his wife Maria and had moved to Emeryville the previous year (2002) from Columbus, Ohio. It's a much larger warehouse these days, but this is kinda' as I remember it in Nov 2003... For over 15 years I bought all my green beans from Sweet Marias. Thompson Owen traveled fa...