October 2001
Adventures With Uncle Wally (Coffee)
by Uncle Wally
Coffee has achieved cult status in this country. This may be pretty obvious, what with a Starbucks or Caribou on every other street corner. But I feel obliged to mention it here as a sort of public service message to paddlers. ‘Cause you may wanna identify cult members before you accidentally invite them along on your next canoe trip. Or at least before you finish buyin’ the food.
Now, lotsa folks drink coffee. Many of ‘em can’t start their day without a little java any more than they can start their car in January without jumper cables. And I suppose that’s OK, seein’ as how caffeine is the perfectly legal drug of choice for millions. But it’s not pretty, havin’ to deal with these people before they’ve had their morning hit.
Serious caffeine users can get pretty strung out when deprived of their daily coffee fix. What with their sluggish reflexes, impaired coordination, and muddled judgment, not to mention the headaches and never-for-the-better personality changes, they don’t make perfect paddling partners. It’s something to think about before you get a day’s paddle away from professional help... or even a decent coffee shop.
I should’ve been thinkin’ about it nearly a decade ago when I took a group of clients out on a week-long canoe trip in the Ozarks. But I wasn’t. I mean, I drink coffee myself, but only socially. I don’t abuse the substance, don’t even know any serious users. Here I was about to find myself the only member of the group that wasn’t a bona fide caffeine addict. And that was unfortunate. ‘Cause as guide, I was also responsible for food procurement. If I’da known how bad these folks’ coffee habit was, I’da increased the ration for the trip. Substantially.
Now, you gotta remember that this was back at the early dawning of the Golden Age of Coffee, back when coffee was still all you could drink for a quarter instead of three bucks a pop for a double latté. And you could drink all you wanted ‘cause the main ingredients were still water and coffee instead of sugar and cream. But the times clearly were a changin’. Give me credit for at least readin’ the trends clearly enough to have packed an honest-to-god percolator in the cook kit instead of just bringin’ instant coffee. It wasn’t that long ago that campers thought instant coffee was pretty nifty. It may not have made a taste sensation, but it sure was convenient. And back then, we were easier to please.
These days, the bar has been raised pretty high on camp cuisine and expectations are gettin’ hard to meet. People may be willin’ to eat freeze-dried clam linguini or Creole shrimp while they’re enjoyin’ the Great Outdoors. But anymore, freeze-dried coffee just isn’t good enough. I at least had enough sense to bring the real McCoy. It was the volume thing that tripped me up.
So the last weekend in October saw me shoving off from an Arkansas gravel bar in blissful ignorance of the fact that I was woefully short of coffee while unwittingly shepherding eleven caffeine fiends downriver.
The first hint of trouble came that very evening after dinner. There was a little nip in the air that made you wanna warm your hands around a cup of something hot. So, solicitous guide that I am, I put a pot of water on the stove and got out my stash of hot drinks: cocoa, apple cider with or without rum, and about a dozen different kinds of tea. But they didn’t want any of that. All they wanted was coffee.
Now, I hadn’t bargained on this. But I knew I had more’n enough coffee for a big pot at breakfast every day. So I made ‘em their after-dinner coffee and everybody went to bed happy, if not particularly early.
Next mornin’, eleven bleary-eyed, tousled-hair campers came crawlin’ outta their tents, neither bright nor early, and stood absently around the stove, vacantly staring at the coffee pot and waiting for the coffee to perk. Those assigned to help on cook crew were only vaguely functional. But I could delegate a few simple tasks that didn’t involve using sharp implements or complicated machinery and we eventually got breakfast made.
After the coffee started flowing freely, people began to perk up and look human again. I noticed that it took two pots to get ‘em back on their feet. But that didn’t worry me...yet. I was more concerned about gettin’ ‘em awake enough to be able to paddle with a modicum of proficiency. And if pumpin’ ‘em full of caffeine was what it took to get ‘em ready for the river, that’s what we’d do. It was the first time I ever thought boating under the influence was a good idea.
That kinda settled us into a pattern of late nights of pleasant conversation followed by late, muddled mornings of no conversation at all. It worked, for a while. But eventually, all this conspicuous coffee consumption began to outpace the supply.
The call to wake up and smell what was left of the coffee came Wednesday morning. Molly, who was helpin’ me repack the camp kitchen, held up a rumpled plastic bag with a few powdered crumbs of coffee in one corner and plaintively asked, "Are we out of coffee?"
The look of mingled horror and fear on her face was a pitiful thing to behold. So I quickly reassured her, "Naw...there’s another bag."
She was visibly relieved. But her relief was short-lived. Rummaging around in the pack, she came up with the second bag of coffee and held it up for my inspection. "Is this all that’s left?" she incredulously queried.
"Uh...yeah," I confirmed, eyeing the slim supply she held. The reserve bag was significantly smaller than the main coffee depot, bein’ meant, after all, just as a reserve. We were halfway through with the canoe trip and we’d already used more than half the coffee. I began to see the gravity of the situation reflected in Molly’s concerned face. "Maybe," I suggested, with all the delicacy of a physician informing a patient of a terminal illness, "Maybe we should cut out the evening pot of brew."
"I guess so," replied Molly with a worried frown and thoughtfully turned back to the packing.
So there was no coffee that evening, but no complaints, either. Apparently, these folks understood their habit well enough to know the difference between wanting coffee after dinner and needing it before breakfast.
Next morning, after she’d had enough coffee to do the math, Molly was in the camp kitchen, carefully measurin’ out the remaining coffee. Before the cook crew dumped out the grounds and started a fresh pot, she stopped them with sobering news. "There’s not enough coffee to brew a second pot every morning and have it last until Saturday." she announced.
There was a moment’s stunned silence. But they took it remarkably well, maybe because they hadn’t yet had enough caffeine to get ‘em up to full steam. At least there was no panic, no crying, no gnashing of teeth. Finally, someone fearfully asked, "Is there enough for one pot a day?"
"There’s more than enough for one pot a day," replied the scientific Molly, "but not enough for two.
After another moment for slightly fuzzy thought someone else piped up, "Hey! Why don’t we just put some fresh coffee on top of the used grounds and re-perk it. It might be a little weak," he conceded, "but it’d be better than nothing."
No one else could think of a reason why not, so they gave it a try. And it musta worked well enough, in a pinch. ‘Cause that became standard practice for the rest of the trip. And, having taken their fate in their own hands, no one even whimpered about it.
Nonetheless, caffeine deprivation gradually took its toll. Mornings dragged as camp chores were suspended until hands were adequately steadied by caffeine to do the job. Everyone hovered around the camp stove like vultures around a gamy carcass, until the triumphant cry of "First perk!" rang out over the gravel bar, easing tensions and renewing hope as the water in the glass percolator knob gradually turned brown. By Friday, we were lucky to be on the water by noon.
And by Saturday, it was a pathetic clot of humanity that huddled ‘round the stove waitin’ for the morning joe. The day was crisp and clear—invigorating, even—with clouds of white fog lifting out of the deep river valley into a deeper blue sky and golden sunshine slanting across the sloping gravel. But nobody noticed. Everyone hunkered down in their fleece, vacant eyes staring listlessly at the coffee pot, shaking hands clasping empty coffee mugs, all waitin’ for chemical consciousness to come.
Well, like I said, it’s a cult. And I guess this early morning ritual is a kind of religious rite with devotees offering worshipful adoration to the percolator icon on the Coleman altar. I don’t quite get it. But next time I take out a group of clients, in addition to askin’ if there are any food allergies or vegetarian leanings, I’ll remember to ask for religious affiliation, too: Catholic, Protestant, or New Age Java. That way, I shouldn’t run outta coffee.
Well, ‘til next time, keep your paddle wet. And keep in touch. Drop me a line c/o Rich Furman and Morgan MacBain, 901 East Geranium Avenue, St. Paul MN 55106 or editor@canoe-kayak.org. Let me know what kind of bad habits you’ve had deal with out on the water. Remember, Uncle Wally promises to 1) tell the truth so nobody’d ever believe it anyway and 2) never reveal your true identity to anyone, not even Mrs. Olson.
