Not long ago, at a morning meeting, one of my java-drinking colleagues noticed I was the only person present without a cup ‘o joe. When he asked me why, I told him the truth: I don’t drink coffee, espresso, cappuccino, decaf, café au lait, or any similar beverages because I despise the taste of them.
There’s rarely any rhyme or reason to why human beings love the flavor of certain foods or drinks while abhorring others, but I have a theory about the origin of my loathing of coffee.
It was a Sunday, Lyndon Johnson was president, we had relatives visiting from out of state, and my mom had put together a sumptuous midday repast. After soup, salad, a delicious main dish and some decadent dessert, the grownups were nursing their post-meal libations while we kids sat quietly and respectfully listening to their conversation(s). Maybe it was because I looked bored, but for some reason my dad asked me if I wanted to try some coffee.
Like any 10-year-old, I eagerly accepted his offer. Talk about excited: The only thing better than being invited to sip what the big people were drinking was watching my two younger siblings turn green with envy, since neither of them had been invited to try whatever was in those great big mugs, which until that moment only adults had merited. My father handed me a cup containing about an inch of brownish, room-temperature fluid. It didn’t look all that appetizing, but with my father’s encouragement I cheerfully took a big gulp. Then I grimaced. Though it didn’t seem possible, that brackish-looking, tepid broth tasted even worse than it looked!
But coffee wasn’t the only social lubricant to which my father helped me develop a lifelong aversion.
Near the end of a family gathering a couple of years later, Dad asked me out of the blue if I’d like to try a beer. Having observed several adults I admired quaffing the stuff, I enthusiastically replied, “Sure!” Handing me an open container of Ballantine Ale, which contained perhaps an inch or so of liquid, he invited me to take a swig.
There’s no telling how long that can had been sitting there, but the warm fluid that emerged from it assaulted rather than tickled my taste buds. Judging by both the color and sourness, it could just as easily have originated in some dog’s kidney as a brewery. Whatever chance I had of eventually becoming a connoisseur of fine lagers evaporated at that precise moment.
The drinking age was 18 back when I graduated from high school, but then, as now, peer pressure was omnipresent for boys in their late teens. I wanted to fit in, but because of my distaste for suds I had to make adjustments. Whenever I attended a party or visited a tavern with friends I’d start the evening off sipping from a brown bottle filled with inexpensive domestic beer. When the dark vessel was completely drained I’d retire to the nearest men’s room, refill it with cold tap water, and return to the festivities. As the night wore on, no one was the wiser, particularly because at the rate I would down those bottles of refreshing H2O, I was visiting the men’s room with at least the same frequency as my increasingly besotted companions were. After about a year of perpetuating that hoax, I dispensed with drinking beer altogether. I’d simply grab a full bottle, discreetly dump out the contents, and get an earlier start on my night-long water-drinking binge.
Every once in a while, I’d be at some nocturnal social function where I’d allow myself to imagine the comely-looking lass I was chatting with was becoming smitten with me. On some occasions, when I felt bold enough, I’d confess my deception to her. More often than not she would be impressed by the ingeniousness of my subterfuge. In retrospect though, it’s likely the late-evening chumminess those women showed was due more to their non-stop consumption of actual beer all night than it was to having any sort of fascination with me.
It’s been four decades since drinking became a legal option for me, and given what’s happened since I took my first sips of cold coffee and warm beer, I’m thinking of employing my dad’s method of alcohol and caffeine education on my own offspring. Our oldest child is 12, and thanks to some nasty ice cream, he’s already decided he dislikes the taste of coffee. I’m not sure when I’ll offer him his first beer, but when the time comes, I’ll be ready. I’ve got a can in the basement that’s been warming up for about two years now.
— Thirty-eight years after reaching the age of majority, Andy Young, who teaches English at a York County high school, no longer drinks water out of dark beer bottles at parties. Perhaps he’s less insecure, or maybe it’s just because he rarely gets invited to such affairs these days.
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