I grew up in the 70s and mostly can’t believe it whenever I think back to how I dressed for school or what a mess my hair, when I had hair, was when I combed it straight down with my pocket comb.  Men wore aftershave like Aquavelva or Old Spice and those smells still trigger my mind whenever I smell someone wearing either.  I wore the very coolest pearl-button western shirts and tall tube socks with stripes.  Most of that seems like the stuff of horrors…or at least it did…

My parents and my grandparents, like everyone at the time, had dishes and decor that went along with the times…there were lots of mushrooms and owls and browns and oranges and otherwise funky patterns.  We had spider plants in macrame hanging baskets and I always sported a kool-aid mustache.  It was the 70s man…it’s what we did.

A year ago, my grandpa passed and my mom gave us a few treasures from my grandparents’ house.  Like most older people do, they just stopped buying new decor items at some point.  They finally decided, I suppose, that it isn’t worth trying to be trendy…For my grandparents, their stopping point was somewhere in the 1970s.  So, one of the items that my mom gave me was a funky owl mug that my grandparents used with their daily coffee…not just any coffee mind you…Sanka!  If that isn’t 1970s…

Anyhow, I have clear memories of them using that cup, sitting around their table talking to my brother and me about whatever.  We didn’t drink coffee at the time but always enjoyed the warm cans of Red and White brand pop they kept under the kitchen sink.  So, I have that cup and it is safely tucked away so I can see it but I don’t want to use it.  Luckily for me, technology allowed me to browse the world’s markets (i.e. ebay) to find another owl mug.  I found one (and only one) and bought it right away!

I received the mug the other day and have absolutely, positively enjoyed drinking coffee from it, thinking about my grandparents and the 70s and macrame and returnable bottles and western shirts.  It’s funny and awesome how much one little coffee cup can bring up in my memory and it’s worth so much more than the $12 it cost me!