Machetes, Canada or Bust & Coffee

The infamous machete from Borneo.

Yesterday morning in the usual scramble to get everyone out the door, and the dog walked, I was also asked to take a photo of the 11 year old holding my machete from Borneo. I had dig it out from where it is stored next to my great grandmother's dishes from Newfoundland and the fine linens from Wales. I took the photo, which, I am told, ended up where it was supposed to, in her class report about Indonesia. 

It added extra adventure to the morning. Which reminded me of mornings on the epic Canada or Bust journey with Vanessa. (Dear Reader please refer to the earlier blog entry of April 13, 2015 for the back story). Getting ourselves up and dressed and in the car always involved an adventurous search for our morning coffee. 

This was in the days before coffee culture. People, there was no Starbucks. I know. I'm not saying this as though Starbucks is the pinnacle of coffee for me personally, though I have been known to go there. I bring up Starbucks for what it is, a marker of what we live in now: A World of Coffee. 

Back in 1987 on the Bust trip we mostly drank truck stop coffee. Thin watery brews. Fresh. Stale. I'd like to say that my taste buds were affronted, but what did I know? The finest beans I knew had been brewed for the classy offerings at the Simon Fraser University cafeteria: Irish Cream, Hazelnut, Mocha Almond flavoured coffees. I didn't know anything beyond the Folgers commercials I'd been raised on. 

At this time, Vanessa's mother was working for Melita. The company that sells coffee makers. One night over dinner she told us a story we would never forget. She told us about meeting a guy that day in Vancouver who worked for a company called Starbucks. He told her that one day Starbucks would have a coffee shop on every corner. Oh how we laughed. 

So it was in that world Dear Reader that we departed on our cross-country journey. It was a world with out rich, fresh, ethically sourced coffee beans. But we made it. We must have because I later went to Borneo and was given a machete. For today, let us be thankful that it is the end of the week and all the assignments are in.  

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