Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: The proof is here!

The proof copy of Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights is in! Here’s a photo Emily shot just after we got it:

Just a few more minor corrections and we’re ready for first printing!

Facebook event page for AFD 125th -- and book signing

For those of you who have Facebook, here’s the event page for the Albion Fire Department’s 125^th anniversary celebration on July 20^th:

https://www.facebook.com/events/134280070100750/

This will also be the first book signing for my history of the department, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights. I haven’t decided yet whether to do a separate events page for the signing, but if you plan to buy a copy let me know, so I know how many to order!

Here’s the text of the flyer Emily created:

Albion Fire Department

125th anniversary celebration

Join us and other local _ re departments as we celebrate the 125th anniversary of our founding on

Activities and games for kids • Fire trucks on display • Antique apparatus

Extrication demonstration • Fair-style foods and drinks • Demonstrations

Activities • Fire truck cruise-in from area departments • Historical photos

Dedication Ceremony 1 p.m. - 2 p.m. in the auditorium

AFD history book premiere and book signing with Mark R. Hunter

Cancer Survivers speaking at this weekend's Noble County Relay For Life

    

Two cancer survivors will share their stories of hope at the Noble County Relay For Life, coming up this weekend at the West Noble High School track and field.

Bev Fitzpatrick, who’s lived in Noble County for 29 years, will be speaker at the Survivor Ceremony at 5 p.m. Saturday. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in October, 2011; just a year earlier, Bev retired from her job as elementary physical education teacher at East Noble Community Schools. Her husband, John, is a retired principal and elementary teacher for Central Noble Schools, and they have a son, daughter, and three grandchildren.

Bev Goss will talk about her battle with cancer during the Fight Back Ceremony, at 9 p.m. This Bev is owner of Goss Grocery in Big Lake and a member of the Big Lake Church of God, and has lived in Noble County for 42 years. After being a nurse for Parkview Hospital for 41 years, she retired in 2012 to enjoy her 12 grandchildren and 3 great-grandkids.

Please join us to hear from these inspiration ladies and fight back against the scourge of cancer. The Noble County Relay For Life is still looking for donations and help, and everyone is welcome to attend the event, which lasts from 10 a.m. Saturday, May 18^th, to 10 a.m. the following morning.

For more information contact Melissa Stephens at melissa.stephens@cancer.org or by phone at 260-471-3911, or Carla Fiandt at the Community State Bank in Albion, at carlaf@csbemail.com, or 260-636-3744.

Other information can be found on the Relay For Life website at:  http://www.relayforlife.org/noblecountyin

Crappuccino: Dropping Coffee‏

 SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

            Years ago, when I first got started in the emergency services, an old medic told me, “Son, if you plan to stay in this business, you’d better learn to love coffee.”

I never did (although I certainly did grow to love caffeine). The following story may be one of the reasons why. I first heard it years ago, but it took me this long to get enough guts to write about it:

            Would you like a nice cup of Kopi Luwak?

            What coffee drinker wouldn’t? It’s a rare gourmet coffee, very expensive, that comes from the exotic land of Indonesia. You may not have heard of it because it was mostly popular in Japan, where people just went bananas for it.

            Back in the late 2000’s, it became one of the most expensive and most sought-after coffees in the world. Just 500 pounds of it is harvested annually, and it has only limited availability in Japan and the US – the western US, I’m guessing.

            It’s, um, harvested by monkeys.

            Specifically, it’s harvested by the palm civet, a tree dwelling animal that’s described as more of a cat than a monkey. Its scientific name is paradoxurus hermaphrodites.

            I’ll let you digest that for a moment.

            Oh, and I’ll let the monkey, or whatever it is, digest on that too. Why? Because the animal, also called a Palm Toddy Cat, doesn’t harvest it in the traditional way. Oh, no.

            It eats the coffee berries.

            Yes, it eats the coffee berries, only picking the perfect ones. The rest of its diet consists of alcoholic tree sap, and I suppose a diet of caffeine and booze says a lot about its behavior. It says nothing, however, about the thinking behind the people who flock to this coffee, which I will refer to as crappuccino.

            Made from digested coffee beans.

            Digested.

            “It’s the best coffee I’ve ever tasted,” says coffee shop owner Richard Karno. “It smells musty, but it roasts up real nice.”

            Other experts also describe a unique “earthy” taste.

            This is the very definition of “you can’t make this stuff up”.

            The animal ... hm. Okay, let me just jump right into it: The monk-cat, or whatever it is, excretes the beans whole, unscratched, and fortunately for those who harvest it without dung. The Toddy Cats pick the ripest, reddest coffee beans, eat the outer covering, and … process the rest.

            Experts say crappuccino was first discovered hundreds of years ago, when explorers sampled it on Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. Those must have been some desperate explorers:

            “Captain, I’m so thirsty: Suppose we make coffee from those strange monkey droppings?”

            “Sure, why not? I’m getting tired of this lemonade we get from wringing out the ship’s cat.”

            They drank a lot of rum back then.

            Here’s how food and drink critic Chris Rubin explained it. Read this very carefully:

            “Whether it’s because the intestinal juices give some special flavor or because it eats only perfectly ripe berries, the Toddy Cat’s droppings produce what many say is the world’s finest coffee.”

            I know I’ve already explained that, but go back and read the quote again. He’s serious. Not a hint of irony.

            I keep thinking of when my wife plays World of Warcraft: When she wins special gear for her character, she says it “drops”. Would WoW have gotten so popular if players had to scoop their stuff out of their horse droppings?

            I don’t know … is it any more weird than a lot of the other foods we eat? Who first came up with the idea of drinking milk?

            “You got this from where?”

            “Hey, it works for babies.”

            “Yeah, but this came from a cow!”

            Or how about eggs?

            “Look what just dropped out of that hen.”

            “Do you think we can eat it?”

            “Okay, did you see where it just came from?”

            Or caviar. Or escargot. Rich people love that stuff. It’s fish eggs and snails, people.

             The one I’ve never understood is yogurt. Whoever came up with the idea of trying that must have really, really hated wasting food. I mean, most foods get thrown out when they look and smell like yogurt.

            But it least it didn’t come from a palm civit toddy cat’s paradoxurus hermaphroditus digestive system.

            I suppose, in the end, it’s just a case of rich people being eccentric, just for the fun of it. So what the heck: If you want to pay big bucks for Kopi Luwak (which probably translates to “stupid tourist”), go ahead. I assume you’ll be having it with escargot.

One Step Closer to The Next Book

Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights has been formatted, and a proof copy is on the way! If all goes well, by this time next week we’ll be ready to order a print run. Then: time to get everyone to come to our first book signing, at the Albion Fire Department’s 125^th anniversary celebration July 20^th.