STARBUCKS I

Can you picture a world when there was only one Starbucks? And it was located in Seattle.

Well, that was then. Who'd have thunk such an explosion. Over coffee. Latte, espresso, ground right in front of the customer. Coffee drinkers at every hour of the day.

I remember my first cup. I never drank it at home with my parents who would typically split a small pot, one time a day drinkers. I waited till I was in college.

Junior college at Mt. Vernon Community College which shared the high school campus with 1800 other students. Mt. V C.C. had about 200 students, probably half of whom also came from Mt. Vernon. We used to call it doing post-high school work at In Town or 7th Street University.

A typical hamburger joint of the 1950-60's, Sailors set on the southeast part, just across the street from the campus. One early morning, I decided that since I was in college, it was time for me to be an adult. "I'll just have a coffee," I told Mrs. Sailor.

When it came, I loaded it down with sugar, sugar, sugar. It was terrible, but I got it down. I drank my coffee that way for about six months until I ordered it black once when I didn't feel well. No sugar has touched my coffee wet lips again. Just black, I'd tell Mrs. Sailor nowadays.

But Sailors, Mt. Vernon C. C. are long gone. It was quite a place that little restaurant. I met one of my friends there one morning after his first day of school at SIU. He's come back to Mt. Vernon and joined the Air Force. No college for him. Till Later. Had he just waited, enrolled at the juco, and been with me when I ordered and sipped that first cup of joe, he might have invented Starbucks or something similar. I might have gone it with him. Then neither of us would have needed college or the Air Force.