If you ever visit Hampoland and ask for a drink you’ll probably be handed a beautiful- tacky- coffee mug. Doesn’t matter if you ask for water, wine, coffee, juice or milk, chances are you’ll be drinking out of a coffee mug.
I have wonderful and bizarre of coffee mugs from all over the world because my kids and friends go to great places and always bring me a coffee mugs. They are more useful and cheaper than t-shirts.
My most recent addition came from Portia Rico. Mary and Jack went there to surf last month and Jack got me a mug with mustached man(he looks kind of like Burt Reynolds) sitting on either a horse or donkey.
Right now it’s sitting in the cabinet next to a mug with the presidential seal and a picture of Socks the Cat. Mary gave me that one for Christmas last year along with a pair of Toms. She was working at the Clinton Foundation so everything in the gift shop was fifty percent off.
Jack and I took Lex to Graceland so I have a mug with Nixon and Elvis shaking hands. One of my favorites is from Fox Pass Pottery. When Lex was born Barbara and Jim Larkin (legendary artists) made her a cup with her name and a blue rocking horse.
My best buddy Amelia brought me a mug with lots of tribal salmon and birds swimming around from Alaska. There’s a goofy leopard print mug with a cheetah head handle. Alex gave it to me when we were dating. It’s weird.
I’ve got a Henry VII mug from London, mugs from Barcelona, Chicago, Nashville and the Outter Banks of North Carolina, New York and Detroit cause Alex was born and raised on Motown and there’s pirate mug from Daytona. I love my Shack Up mug from Mississippi. There were share-cropper shacks in the Delta but I think somebody famous like Morgan Freeman turned them into little blues cottages.
Oh, and one of the best is from St. Louis. It has a big picture of the Arch of course. Amelia and I took Mary up there for college. Mary told everybody we were both “her moms,” so everyone we met thought we were a nice gay couple. Mary stayed in St. Louis for a few months then ran off with a guy who’s e-mail address was “Toker 69”. That’s what I think about every time I use that mug.
There’s Pisgha, Alabama home of the Eagles. Pisgha is Amelia’s home town and it’s really fun to say out loud. The best for coffee is a big blue mug Lex got me from the Ripley’s Museum in Branson.
There’s only one rule about coffee mugs in Hampoland. We have an old cheap cup with cows. Twenty years ago when Mary and Jack were little, we had an entire set of cow dishes. Now there’s just one cup left with a momma cow and her baby. It’s called the “Cow Cup” and you’re only allowed to drink milk from the Cow Cup. If you try to pour juice in the Cow Cup everybody in the house will yell at you. Even Lexie and Sandor’s friends know not to put soda in the Cow Cup.
So come on over any time. Ask for something to drink and you’ll probably get a great story along with your beverage.