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 Very slowly, Herb Collins stood with his cup of
coffee there in the midst of culture and education at the Mule Barn
truck stop.
“Actually, Steve,” Herb said, in his most professorial tone, “his
name was Kaldi. He lived in Ethiopia.”
And here Herb grinned fiendlishly at Steve. “And he was a
sheepherder!”
“No way, Herb!”
“The truth, cowboy, nothing but the truth. In fact, it wasn’t so
much Kaldi doing anything, it was his sheep. You see…” (and he
turned to face the tables and booths to find he held a rapt
audience) “… ol’ Kaldi had noticed his sheep munching these red
berries and going kinda hyper all over the place, looking for a lion
to whip or something. Well, Kaldi knew that hyper sheep were too
busy running around eating the plants flat to the ground to be
putting on any mutton, so he decided to investigate. He chewed some
of these berries himself and beat the sheep back to the ol’ Mutton
Mansion. He made a couple of laps around the house and said ‘Man, I
just can’t live without my coffee!’
“Now that was about 1000 A.D., you know. The word got out, and
people started up their drip machines, and morning stopped being
such a dirty word. Of course, as with anything good, there are
always party poopers who want it stopped. And so it came to pass
with coffee. Six hundred years after Kaldi’s sheep, a bunch of
Christians (obviously on decaf) petitioned Pope Clement VIII to ban
coffee, believing anything that made mornings pleasant must be the
devil’s drink.
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column] |
"Being a fair-minded guy, the
Pope didn’t want to do that without giving it a try first, so he had
some cardinal whip up a batch and he sucked it down. Well, he gave
the drink his blessing, said it was an official Christian beverage,
had a mug made with ‘Clem’ on it, and hung it over the sink.
“Here’s to coffee!” Herb said to the audience, “The choice of
sheepherders everywhere!”
Where does he get these things?
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
Ol' Jimmy Dollar
is Slim Randles' first children's book. The book is for kids
K-3rd grades and is even better when parents read it with children.
Ol' Jimmy Dollar makes for sweet dreams and if you have a dog
even better. Available now on Amazon.
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