I love waking up in the morning and brewing my cup of coffee — usually Peets French Roast or Cafe Domingo. I brew one cup pouring the hot water through a filter containing the ground-up coffee. I’ve come to love the smell as it wafts through the house. Then I read the paper starting with The Press Democrat sports section online to see what my son Grant wrote and Phil Barber and Kerry Benefield and Lori Carter, and then I read the Sporting Green — I have an alumni’s interest in that section. And all the time I’m sipping my coffee and coming back to life.

While I’m lying in bed at night — before I go to sleep — I think about my morning joe and it makes me smile and want to fall asleep fast so I can wake up soon and drink the coffee. When I was a kid I went to sleep thinking about my baseball cards — The Duke, Mays, Mantle. Later on, I went through a period thinking about my wine cellar, a very modest one. I’d like there and recall every bottle. It was a grownup form of collecting baseball cards, but more expensive and drinking the wine is fattening.

Now, it’s just me and my coffee. As I’ve gotten old, my life has become simpler and in lots of ways more satisfying.