Wake up and smell the coffee

Proust had his madeleine, and I have my burger, doughnut and coffee, one whiff of which is capable of launching me into an almost hypnotic state of nostalgia.  It all goes back to an afternoon in the Village when I was maybe three or four years old.  On the corner of Waverly Place and Sixth Avenue, there's a coffee shop.  There has always been a coffee shop on the corner of Waverly Place and Sixth Avenue.  These days, it's called the Waverly Diner, or something similarly logical.  I think of it as the new place, even though it has probably been called that for 30 years.

Back in the day, though, it was called Twin Brothers, and it was a little more on the doughnut shop end of the continuum.  Back in the day, most diners were, and most were  called something like that -- Twin Brothers, Four Guys, Three Joes.  They all had the same neon and chrome motif, white Formica counter, soda fountain, round stools that a little kid can spin around on, and the smell of burgers, doughnuts, and coffee. 

At the time my family was living a few blocks away on the corner of Houston and Sixth, and we had some interesting neighbors, as people in the Village tended to have back then. Next door to us was a divorced mom named Cathy Phelps, with two kids about the same age as my sister and me named Peter and Susie.  It's not a given in New York that two families with kids the same age living next door to each other will become friends, because nothing interpersonal is a given in New York, but we did in fact all become friends.

Elsewhere in the building, there was a guy named Bob Gibson.  He had three daughters who were quite a bit older than us, and baby sat from time to time.  Bob was a famous folk singer, a prominent member of the generation that immediately preceded and mentored  Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and the like.  My parents were sort of beatnik-ish, and deeply involved in the anti-war movement, civil rights, and lefty causes, which made "folk singer" a respected profession in our household. 

At the age of three or four I was only very dimly aware of any of this sociology, but it was part of the background of life, and I was aware that Bob was somebody.  I was also dimly aware that there was something dark and wrong about him, that made others wary.  I have learned (through family reminiscence and reading up on the folk scene) that what was wrong was drug addiction.  Bob also had a brother named Jim, who wound up moving in with and marrying Cathy next door and become a presence in our lives thereafter (and who may also have shared some of his brother's troubles, though I'm not clear on this).

So anyway, there we all were, folk singers, junkies, college professors, divorcees, lovers, teenage daughters, and little kids in and out of each others apartments doing what ever it is that such people do.  [I can't speak for anyone else, but I had a serious Tinkertoy jones] Though they were little more than kids themselves, my parents tended to be the most adult and level headed figures around.  My father was often the only male possessed of basic urban family preservation instincts and common sense, and my mother was often the only female who knew how to keep people fed and clothed, acting as a den mother to all manner of strays throughout the sixties.

Anyway, where were we?  Ah yes burgers, doughnuts and coffee.  One thing that was definitely not a regular feature of daily life in the level-headed beatnik home was greasy spoon food.  My mother was a relatively serious cook and homemaker, and my parents were relatively broke in those days, so we didn't routinely go out for snacks, and when we did, they tended to be wholesome.  So one day, one of the Gibson girls (I don't remember any of their names) invited me on an adventure in search of snacks, and she took me in hand to Twin Brothers.  Immediately upon entering, I was greeted by the combined aroma of burgers on the griddle, coffee, and fresh doughnuts.  I spun around in circles on the stool and cautiously accepted the Gibson girl's offer of a bite of burger, a jelly doughnut and a glass of chocolate milk, sensing somehow that all this was contraband.

Soon, the snack was over, and it was time to head back down Sixth to Beatnik Towers.  We arrived home to furor and panic, my father searching the streets, my mother ready to call the cops, and Gibson adults in high dudgeon.  It seems that not only was the snack itself contraband, but conveying me to said snack without proper notice and authorization was a rather serious transgression.  After that incident, to the best of my recollection I was no longer entrusted to any Gibson girls, and I believe that very shortly after Bob's family imploded and disappeared from Beatnik Towers.

Ever since then, any time I have walked into or past a greasy spoon or doughnut shop and encountered that combination of aromas, this narrative plays out in my mind, with a vibrancy and certainty as strong as anything else in my memory. Literally, every time for my entire life, a jelly doughnut can serve up near total recall of an event that happened at the edge of memory and experience.  It also triggers a flood of memories about Cathy, Jim Peter and Susie, and the ways we would exit and re-enter each other's lives over the following decade or so, which is a story for another day.  Perhaps I'll head down to the coffee shop for a jelly doughnut and a glass of chocolate milk, find a Bob Gibson record on iTunes and see what happens.