THEY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THIS IS

The folks from Bake Chop, providing some early morning refreshments for the volunteers handing out packets for the upcoming MeStrong 5K, set up one of these.

A couple of younger volunteers asked me what it was.

It was kind of like when I visited a dairy farm as a youngster and saw them milking a cow and asked what that was. Or the time I stepped into the driver’s seat of an old Model T and asked what the hand crank was.

Things and processes change over time. Remember the rotary dial phone?

These younger volunteers and I talked about the percolator, doing its thing on the table by the window. I noted how the coffee will be very weak for a while as a heater at the bottom forces squirts of water to the top to “percolate” down through a container with coffee grounds. Over and over it would squirt and drip down until the whole pot was transformed from clear water to what we know as coffee.

The Mr. Coffee machine creates coffee quicker as do the Keurig cups or the barista at Starbucks or Dunkin.