Having been born a Scandinavian/German/Lutheran in Wisconsin, it was almost required that I drink and enjoy coffee. Well, not just enjoy but crave...insist on...lust for...coffee. I mean no disrespect when I say that at St. John's Lutheran Church, drinking coffee before and after the service was given nearly sacramental status. We called it "Fellowship" but that's just ministerial short-hand for "Could you pass the sugar cubes, please?" These were the days before Latte Mocha Mucho Milky el Grande Venusian De-caf or any of those fancy, schmancy brews. Where I grew up you had Butternut and Folgers, with caffeine, and you drank it black. If someone even asked about cream, you knew he was new to the area and would probably not make it through the first winter day, which could be around September 5.

Everyone I knew drank coffee. Every house had a coffee pot on the stove. Not a coffee-maker. A pot. Made of gray tin. As a toddler, I used to steal ours and use it as a robot or the Tin Man. Actually, I was a Freshman before I stopped doing that...Freshman in college. Coffee was generally thought to be an adult drink although I knew a kid my age that loved the stuff. We all had dogs and cats and rabbits for pets, he had a pack mule loaded down with bags of beans. In high school, we all had that poster of Farrah Fawcett on the wall, he had one of Juan Valdez...disturbingly, wearing the same red bathing suit. He claimed he drank a couple of cups of coffee every morning and we believed him. He was the only kid in class who could play dodge ball all by himself.

I thought I knew about coffee's allure until I met my wife and her family. They have really taken the art and science of drinking coffee to a new level. They can discuss beans and brand-names, thermoses (thermi?) and insulated cups like some folks talk wine. When coffee gets spilled on the carpet or in the car, it is not cause for concern but an opportunity to engage in a game of Name The Splotch...sort of a highly-caffeinated Rorschach test. Their favorite public figure is "Coffee" Anan. Their favorite TV show is the BBC's Mr. Bean. They love movies like Jurassic Perk, The French Roast Connection, Some Like it Hot. My father-in-law's favorite poet is Robert Frost and, especially "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I took the one...that led to Starbucks." All of our kids and their cousins have the middle name "Java." They like their coffee. Nirvana would be something like having an endless coffee klatch in a coffee house near a large coffee mill with a bit of coffee cake while sitting near a coffee table under a coffee tree reading a coffee-table book. I was already doing weather on TV in Wisconsin when I met my wife-to-be, Jessica, so some of her cousins, aunts and uncles had accidentally watched me once. They warned Jessica's parents that I was "full of beans." They misunderstood that to mean I owned a coffee shop and that's why they initially approved of my courting their daughter.

Imagine their disappointment when they found out that, not only did I not own a roastery, I didn't even drink the stuff. WHAT?!? Yes, it was true. They tried to enroll me in a program, held, appropriately, downstairs at the church:

Me :"Hello. My name is Joel and I don't drink coffee."

The Group: "Hi, Joel."

The Counselor: "So, Joel, how is it that you, from Wisconsin...a Lutheran...never took up the beautiful bean?"

Me: "Well, I always liked the smell of it but the taste just never interested me. It wasn't really a conscious decision...it just happened."

The Group: "Sure, Joel."

The Counselor: "Okay. Admitting the problem is the first step. Let's focus on the heavenly aroma and go from there. I think by next month at this time you will be hoisting a mug full of the strongest brew available."

Me: "I'm sorry but I don't really want to drink coffee. I'm okay with water...chocolate milk, now and then."

The Group: "We're going to hurt you, Joel."

The Counselor: "Now, group, let's be patient with Joel. Clearly, his sleepy inner child is crying out for love and understanding. We need to show him that the best part of waking up IS Folgers in his cup...even if we have to force it down his throat. Let's all step out for a fresh cup and let Joel think about this."

With that, they locked me in the church basement.

It wasn't just coffee that I eschewed as a teenager. I didn't drink soda-pop, either. I wanted to because it just seemed easier to handle on trips and picnics. When a new soda would come on the scene, I'd think "maybe this is the one!" I had high hopes for Mr. Pibb. Dashed. There was a pop machine in town that had orange soda, a lemon-lime drink called Sundrop and, best of all, ice-cold chocolate milk in a bottle! That was a little bit of paradise for a non-pop drinker like me. My decision to forego drinking soda was not because my mom forbid it. She liked her Coca-Cola. In fact, many nights, we'd find her, sound asleep, holding hands with us and warbling "I'd like to teach the world to sing...." She did prevent me from eating peanuts for fear of choking. Just a couple years ago, in Branson, at a show, I was passing some peanuts down the aisle to someone else and my mom slapped them out of my hand. "I've told you...no nuts...you could choke. Now, go buy my a Coke." No, I passed on soda because the carbonation frightened me. Something about bubbles. Blowing bubbles...terrifying. Bubble gum...no thanks. (I was sure Bazooka Joe had it in for me.) Don't even ask me about Mr. Bubble. When I first saw Hitchcock's Psycho, I just assumed Mr. Bubble had attacked that woman in the shower. In Wisconsin, water fountains are called "bubblers," which prevented me from ever getting a drink from one. No soda. No coffee. (I also didn't wear blue jeans until I was out of college but that's another story.)

When I started doing early morning television, my wife assumed I would start drinking coffee but I resisted. Then, one chilly, winter day, my wife said, to no one in particular, "I sure wish I had someone to share a hot cup of coffee with on a cold day...it would be so cozy and romantic." Being a sensitive, compassionate husband, and, having grown accustomed to sleeping indoors, I folded. She prepared a cup of hazelnut with just the right amount of half & half. I will admit it: delicious. I was hooked. For many afternoons I'd have coffee. Then, I HAD to have coffee. If I skipped a day, my head would start to pound like a man wearing a towel on the wrong side of a locked hotel room door. Finally, I decided I had to quit drinking coffee, which I did after enduring the haziest four days in my life.

A few months ago, my wife said, to no one in particular, "I think a cup of coffee now and then makes some people feel better and treat others more humanely because he wouldn't be so cranky in the latte, I mean, latter part of the day." Being a sensitive, compassionate husband...oh, to heck with that...I started drinking coffee again. Until, last Wednesday. I just decided I didn't really like it that much and it was keeping me up too late and I'd get headaches if I skipped it and I'd already counted all the tiles in our bathroom and read all the graffiti in Channel 9's men's room. (That Jim Flink is quite a poet.) Anyway, I'm officially off coffee.

I do miss it a little. I still like the aroma. I know, the next time my wife and I go to a coffee shop, I'll miss feeling like a grownup when my wife orders the hi-test stuff and I ask for cocoa. (If she wouldn't always ask if they have a booster chair for me, it would be better.) I do feel I am denying an essential part of my heritage. But, I have a strong sense that the next generation is prepared to carry the cup forward through the 21st century. Our second son, Taylor, already likes it and, seems to need it first thing some mornings...or afternoons....when he gets out of bed. I don't know if the other two boys will ever drink much coffee but I am concerned that if our daughter starts, it could be trouble. She has enough energy already. A little of the bouncing bean and she may be physically unable to stop moving. She will have to learn to sleep with her eyes open. Hey. Maybe that's why folks used to guzzle so much coffee right before early service on Sundays.