Firsts

KP and I were on our way to meet my parents for lunch. We decided to eat at a burger joint. To get there I drove down an old time Main Street. As I was sitting at a red light I was looking at all the old stores and restaurants and my eyes landed on Hoagies Family Style Restaurant.

Hoagies is one of those old fashioned diners with the original metal stools and the old time waitresses with 1950 style aprons and a cook named Mel sweating in the kitchen. As I sat at the light and saw the restaurant, I was flooded with a memory so strongly that it passed before my eyes like a quick time movie.

I was a freshman in college and home on a random break, it was still cold and we both had jackets on. My dad and I were sitting in a back booth waiting to order. The waitress showed up, he ordered coffee and so did I…my very first virgin cup. I had never drunk coffee before. As the cup landed in front of me and a bit splashed over the side I started questioning my dad on how to drink it, with milk or sugar or black and what the big deal was about coffee anyway and why he drank it everyday and how can it even taste good when it smells so rank.

And on that cold day, we sat at Hoagies eating flapjacks, drinking coffee and talking about that amazing cup of joe. I never thought in a million years that habit would stick.

Do you remember your first cup?

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