Feb 18th 2008 06:19 am Beachheads
It’s been a pretty rough winter where I live this year. Put another way, it’s been more typical of winter than the past several winters have been. I thought you might appreciate a trip to the beach. This early beach series ran in 1992 and has never been seen at arloandjanis.com before now.
Posted by jimmyjohnson / Vintage A&J
24 Responses to “Beachheads”
Sandy in Sherman, TX on 18 Feb 2008 at 6:54 am #
Re today’s Arlo and Janis: My 85 year-old Daddy still asks for his coffee “saucered and blowed”. These days that means a little cool water added to his cup, but nonetheless, I thought maybe ours was the only family left who still remembers that! ^_^
Lora on 18 Feb 2008 at 7:22 am #
I had to comment on todays cartoon. My dad and his family drank coffee this way. The problem is they all slurp it out of the saucer. I hated slurping then and I hate it now. Slurping anything grosses me out..And no I will not drink a slurpee..Gross…
BubbaWorldComix.net on 18 Feb 2008 at 7:47 am #
referring to “today’s” A&J , I’m just glad that I’m not the only one who talks to his cat like he understands everything I say….which he does.
Vickie on 18 Feb 2008 at 8:36 am #
My grandfather also drank his coffee this way. He took it double strength, with hot “sweetmilk” (that’s regular milk for modern folks). It took the Starbucks craze to elevate this from ‘southern country hick’ to ‘espresso-style’!
Jim in Dallas on 18 Feb 2008 at 9:02 am #
My Grandpa drank coffee so weak that it was too strong if you could not see the spoon at the bottom of the cup.
Re: Beachheads…Yeah, this one HAS shown up lately…maybe at the first of the website’s publishing?
Marcie iin Doylestown on 18 Feb 2008 at 9:06 am #
You must be having the winter that we are not having in the Middle Atlantic States. Storms have veered around us, and we are still awaiting the Big Snowfall. Most unusual for us.
Jim in southwest Illannoy on 18 Feb 2008 at 9:07 am #
My grandpa used to pour his coffee in a saucer and blow on it to cool it too. Seems a lot of us here have (or had) grandpas who drank their coffee that way. They had a milk cow then so their milk was poured straight from the bucket through a milk strainer (with filter paper), then refrigerated. I remember the little chunks of butterfat floating around in the milk. Grandpa and my uncles got me drinking coffee when I was about 6 or 7. I don’t saucer mine though. Thanks for bringing back the memories Jimmy.
Steve from Rochester on 18 Feb 2008 at 9:45 am #
I want to thank you for taking the time to put up cartoons we’ve not seen before. I think it’s been about two or three years since I discovered A&J — and it was on-line, since my local papers don’t carry it. I really enjoy getting to see your earlier work.
Susan on 18 Feb 2008 at 10:28 am #
Just as soon as you say a cartoon hasn’t appeared before someone will find it. I knew I had seen this cartoon before. I always remembered it because I always wanted to get a room just for the kids! Just a little digging came up with this link http://www.arloandjanis.com/beach1.htm if that link doesn’t work it’s located here http://www.arloandjanis.com/archive624.htm in the paragraph about Arlo acquiring a decrepit 57 Chevy.
Jim Fulton on 18 Feb 2008 at 10:47 am #
My parents–or, my father, at least–used to cool their coffee that way. Even though they weren’t country folk (although my father had a semi-rural upbringing), the expression, “it’s all saucered and blowed,” meant that the coffee was ready to drink.
Hollis on 18 Feb 2008 at 12:41 pm #
Are you sure about the beach scene? I’m pretty confident that I’ve seen it before. I remember this comic distinctly and I wasn’t reading Arlo & Janis in 1992. It’s a good one, so keep it going!
Corb on 18 Feb 2008 at 4:15 pm #
In the 60′s I used to go camping with Grandad and he made coffee in the old perculator style pot over an open fire…. *real* men don’t do cream.That’s what I grew up on, and I never found anything even close until I moved to Louisiana and discoverd “Community Coffee”. About 4 p.m. after cooking all day that stuff was so thick you could eat it like ice cream.AHHH the good ol’ days!
Steve from Royal Oak on 18 Feb 2008 at 4:20 pm #
I never really started drinking coffee as I was told it would stunt my growth. I am 51…still growing, but horizontally and not vertically.
I never cared for the taste of coffee, but on my overseas travels to Europe and Japan, I will drink a cup to overcome the jet lag. I was on a plane going from Munich to Toulouse France in 2001 and the stewardess offered cream in a pretty pitcher. I tried it and now can tolerate the taste.
One time I went to Starbucks with a client and ordered a decaf. The counterperson said “Oh you want a coccubeejo latte grande” or something like that. As I waited for the coffee (for a long time), the person at the end of line asked me what I ordered. I said “decaf” She then gave me and the rest of the employees a look that said “this clown doesn’t know what he ordered”.
The folks that LOVE coffee are probably shaking their heads as they read this.
Mary in Ohio on 18 Feb 2008 at 4:35 pm #
I too remember “saucered and blowed” – I think originally ( hundreds of years ago when saucers first appeared-I will have to look this up.)the saucer was there for just that purpose.
Today’s A&J is one of the few on comics.com that is up to date. Half of the handful I check each day are from Feb. 15, even though I read yesterday’s yesterday. Strange.
Kim in California on 18 Feb 2008 at 4:46 pm #
I thought the same thing. I didn’t see Arlo and Janis in the 90′s but I am positive I have seen this strip before.
Ken from Framingham (Boston Globe reader) on 18 Feb 2008 at 6:52 pm #
To Steve from Royal Oak– almost 47, and never had a coffee!
Julienne on 18 Feb 2008 at 8:28 pm #
I will add to the memories of parents or grandparents drinking coffee from the saucer.
I would get my own saucer…..with mostly milk and more sugar….and the chance to slurp like a cat….. interestingly enough, slurping brings back good memories of uncles getting their first swigs of coffee via a saucer while the cup of near boiling egg coffee cooled.
The family belief was that all good Swedes began to drink coffee by at least 4!
catshoes on 18 Feb 2008 at 9:25 pm #
Ditto Susan and Hollis. Sorry, Jimmy, but you have run this series before all the way through 7/11 (except Sundays) but it is good enough to run again!
Tom on 18 Feb 2008 at 11:48 pm #
Some of the best coffee I ever had was on a fishing trip in Canada…near Sioux Narrows, Ontario. If you took a guide, you would get ‘shore lunch’. You’d pull up to a spot on the
shore after fishing all morning and the guide would prepare lunch.
He’d take the fish you caught that morning, filet them on a paddle and then cook them over
a blazing fire in lard. Deep fried. Plus fried potatoes, baked beans and coffee.
The coffee was started by scooping up lake water and bringing it to a boil over the campfire.
Then coffee and sugar was added right in the pot. It all came back to the boil and after
a bit of cooling (a dollop of water was added to settle the grounds), you drank it.
Deelish! All of it. One of simplest and best meals I’ve ever eaten. I’m sure the activity,
the scenery, the companionship, the fresh air and the freshest of ingredients all had something to do with it.
Now I’m hooked on Kona coffee. Discovered it for myself on a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii.
Radar in California on 19 Feb 2008 at 3:58 am #
Steve from Royal Oak wrote:
“I never really started drinking coffee as I was told it would stunt my growth…”
I always heard that drinking coffee stunted your growth too, so I stayed away from it even as a teen. It didn’t work though. I never drank coffee and am now all of 5’7″, while my siblings and cousins who all drank coffee growing up are all tall–6′+ for the guys, 5’10″ for the girls. I’ve come to the conclusion that the “coffee stunts your growth” myth is a conspiracy propagated by tall people to keep themselves in the minority. Curse my trusting nature.
Now I drink coffee frequently, for pleasure, but it’s too late for my stature. I, like Steve from Royal Oak, am now fighting horizontal growth rather than vertical.
Jim in southwest Illannoy on 19 Feb 2008 at 8:20 am #
Jimmy, when I was stationed at Barksdale (up there in yankee country where Mr. Honda lives) I had a roommate who introduced me to chicory coffee. He was from Lake Charles. Great stuff.
Tom, it’s funny how food eaten outdoors while active like that always taste better.
momof3boys on 19 Feb 2008 at 8:54 am #
I remember my mom drinking her coffee like this from my youth. I think it was done to save time and so she could drink it right away! I have been drinking coffee my whole life except for that short time when I kicked the habit in college. My mom told me she put it in my bottle with my infant soy formula because it tasted so bad. Then, I can remember my parents waking me up with a cup of coffee on my nightstand every morning for school.
CG from MN on 19 Feb 2008 at 7:23 pm #
Doesn’t anyone remember the cube sugar between the teeth? Sipping the saucer.
Jean from Dahlonega GA on 20 Feb 2008 at 5:43 am #
I know I’m a few days behind here, but hey, better late than never!
My grandfather made coffee in a pot on the stove, and just as soon as it had finished boiling he would pour a cup and drink it, then pour a second cup and go sit at the table to sip it leisurely. How he could drink that first cup is a mystery to me.
As for me, I have my trusty drip pot, and always use Luzianne coffee with just a few grains of salt added to the basket. The chicory and the salt seem to make mornings better.