The Coffee Cups

Lining the top of the cabinets in my kitchen; or, rather, in Sandra’s kitchen, are dozens of coffee cups. There are some nice ones, some very cheap ones, one or two historic cups, and many pieces of tourist trap bait. They represent cities, countries, companies, geographic features, and government agencies. They are nothing to anyone except me; but they tell the story of my life, so I won’t give them up. Thankfully, though, she has never complained about them. 

Sometime after I left the Army, I decided that I would get a coffee cup whenever I worked at a company, or took a trip. That would be my keepsake and would help me remember that job, that business trip, that mission trip, or that vacation. I thought that a physical reminder would keep the memories in my brain, so I always bought a cup, was given one, or (in one case) retrieved it from the garbage can. 

Like life, of course, the collection strayed from purity. There’s a shot glass from Moscow, a beer stein from Vienna, a thermos from Kwajalein, a bomblet from a missile, a badge from a missile range, and a piece of an artillery shell from an explosives test. Because I was very fortunate, my experiences were too broad to fit into my plans; but, for the most part, the collection is coffee cups. The tops of my kitchen cabinets have long since been overwhelmed by the cups my life has created, much like the memories have overwhelmed my brain’s ability to hold them; so I am reduced to tucking them into cabinets or into a closet. Occasionally, I’ll see one that I had forgotten about and the memories will roar through my eyes, forcing themselves in on me as if I was still there in that moment. Sometimes I’ll see one and will stare blankly at it for awhile, hoping to remember where it’s from or why I spent my time on it.  Thirty years may not be long to live; but it’s a long time to collect coffee cups, and even my cup-assisted memory is starting to have holes in it. Before the holes grow any wider or deeper, I want to offer you the stories that the cups have to tell. Their stories are important and trivial. They are banal and original. Like the life they represent, they are whatever they are; but the stories belong to the cups and, when you look at all of them, they are my life. 

For some time to come, the blog will consist of a picture of a coffee cup and a story that goes with it. I was going to say “the story that goes with it”; but each cup is a window into a part of my life with a million stories that can never be told with the few words and years that we have at our disposal, so one story per cup will have to do.