Adieu, Old Friend

Today, I had to retire a trusted old friend... our Melitta coffee grinder.

This little gadget did yeoman's service for me and, later, for Jeff and me, for more than 20 years. Purchased at Cole Hardware in San Francisco in 1986 to replace a Braun (my second in the space of about a year) that had bitten the dust, this little grinder kept going and going and going--through all the ups and downs that life threw at me in San Francisco, through the move to Chicago, through a move within Chicago to our present home...and was still grinding like crazy this morning when Jeff noticed that some of the copper wiring was showing through the cord. So, the motor never gave up the ghost, but the cord finally wore through.

Luckily, my great friend Barbara Lawson gave Jeff and me a coffee grinder (along with an espresso maker that wore out a while ago) 'way back when as a wedding present, and we still had it up on a shelf, just waiting for the day the Melitta ground its last.

Well, today is that day! Still... pretty good recommendation for a product nowadays, that it would last for more than 20 years!