Coffee and My Uncle Roger

In 1936 the chain of National Stores was a forerunner to today’s supermarket chains. The customer actually took items off the shelf, put them in her cart and wheeled them up to the checkout line.

Coffee was sold as whole beans in a paper bag. The customer ground her own coffee in the store and the ground coffee went into the same paper bag, just like today. The National store carried three varieties of house coffee. Eight O’Clock Coffee came in a red bag. It was a 100% Arabica medium roast, uniquely smooth yet full bodied in taste with a complex finish. This coffee was especially recommended for breakfast. Eight O’Clock was the least expensive of the three blends.

Bokar came in a black bag and was the most expensive blend. It was recommended for supper because of its full and smooth flavor with a subtle strength. Bokar was also 100% Arabica.

Sadly, I don’t remember the name of the third blend, but it split the difference, both in price and in flavor, between Eight O’ Clock and Bokar. It came in a yellow bag and was recommended for lunch. It was more full flavored than Eight O’Clock (though not as sparkling), but not so full flavored as Bokar.

My Uncle Roger was the manager of a National store in 1936; a lucky man to have such a good job, or any job at all in those days. He swore that the coffee beans were delivered to the back loading dock in a 100# bag. Then he and the people he managed would gather in the back room before the store opened and weigh the beans from the single bag out into the red, yellow and black paper bags. Up to this point everything said has been fact. What follows is fantasy.

But, maybe not so fantastic. One must admit that it or something very like it surely happened somewhere.

Susan had a happy marriage. She and Bert were doing remarkably well. Bert had a white collar job that paid $30 per week and seemed pretty secure. His bosses thought highly of him. Still, Susan worried about money and with good reason. Her best girlfriend’s husband had just lost his job. Her cousin Frank, who had a wife and 5 kids and lived in Pittsburgh lost his job. Once solid firms were failing. The Chicago cityscape was dotted with the steel skeletons of tall buildings that were begun but never finished for lack of financing.

One tiny cloud dotted the pure azure of Susan’s marital sky. It was so small that she sometimes forgot about it for weeks. Sometimes she wasn’t sure it was there at all, but it was. Bert would drink only Bokar coffee for breakfast, lunch and supper. The habit rankled Susan because it was “different” and “odd”, but even more so because of the expense. She once suggested that Bert might enjoy drinking a proper breakfast coffee for breakfast, but that went very badly. Bert swore and stormed out of the house. He knew it was about the money and took it as a slight on his ability as a breadwinner. He said that stuff in the red bag tasted just like dishwater. Susan thought it was some kind of a macho thing.

When Bert came back late that night, he was full of remorse. He said it was all his fault and he even cried and said that his whole life was devoted to pleasing her. But, as often as he tried, he just couldn’t keep that Eight O’Clock coffee down, it tasted so vile. The stuff in the yellow bag that was so highly touted as a lunch coffee was only a little better.

Susan cried and said it was all her fault. She felt like such a little b…h for complaining about her husband’s coffee drinking habits when other men spent their paycheck on liquor or, worse yet, were not even earning a paycheck. Later, when all was forgiven and they were cuddling in bed, Bert confessed that he was pretty sure that he was up for a raise, maybe as much as $2.50 a week. He never mentioned it before, because he was afraid of jinxing it. Susan felt so silly for worrying about the few cents extra a day that Bert spent on his Bokar.

A few weeks later, when Bert lost his job, they didn’t do as badly as Susan had feared. They were able to get on relief (we call it welfare now) and Susan’s parents kicked in $1.50 a week from her dad’s tiny pension. To be sure this was strictly a loan, to be paid back when times got better or when hell froze over. Whichever came first.

They had to move into a smaller apartment in a less desirable part of town. Every day Susan managed to get in a few thinly veiled digs about the extravagance of their former life and how they could use that wasted money now. Bert had some extravagant scenario about losing his confidence due to worry about coffee and thus displaying a loser image. This, of course, was the reason he lost his job. But mostly, they just sat around and didn’t drink coffee. They couldn’t afford it.