I gave Daddy a thermos one year for Christmas. It was a heavy duty thermos, like you’d see in a construction worker’s lunchbox. It was one of Daddy’s favorite gifts ever. That thermos, even today, brings back lots of great memories because it went with us on most of our hunting trips throughout the years.
A typical hunt during the Christmas vacation found us leaving the house early in the morning with a couple of turkey sandwiches from the leftover Christmas bird. We also squeezed a few fresh navel oranges from Florida in our stash, some candy bars from Christmas stockings and that thermos filled with piping hot coffee, lots of sugar and more than a splash of fresh whipping cream.
I didn’t like coffee at the time. I found it bitter and drank some once as a young boy that made me dizzy and halfway sick at my stomach.
But when Daddy opened his thermos on a car ride to Union or Renick or any number of our quail hotspots, the aroma of Maxell House coffee overwhelmed the inside of our car. But though I enjoyed the smell of fresh coffee, I didn’t drink even a bit until one cold December morning when we had just found three coveys of quail and each had a pile of birds laying on the back seat floorboard. We hopped in the car, turned on the heater and this time when Daddy cracked open the thermos, I couldn’t resist. I had a sip and all that cream and sugar helped that coffee go down mighty easily. From then on, I loved coffee, though I enjoy it black now, no cream and sugar.
But each time I see a coffee thermos and especially when I can smell fresh coffee from that container, my mind is flooded with the rich memories of a young man and his Dad hunting quail in the gentle, rolling hills of West Virginia.