Working in the USA — V
Truckstop
Read: Part I
Dave, my friend from the Midnight Cowboy sale in the western depot near the Albuquerque train yard, gave me good directions even if I didn’t know which way I was going.
A brisk half hour walk in a straight line from the rail yard brought me to a point where I could start making decisions, a truckers’ rest stop with a vast parking space in the shadow of an interstate flyover.
Not before time, either, as I’d begun to realise Albuquerque — the coat, not the city- was not just a style choice, it had ramifications for my future as an intrepid traveller, too. To put it simply, I was carrying several more pounds than I could manage.
Coffee in a truck stop in New Mexico in 1973 was a galaxy in distance from coffee today. This coffee was even before the coffee Paulie tries to order in The Sopranos. It was ground fine and filtered through simmering water and a paper coffee filter into a glass coffee carafe sitting on a hot plate. There, the coffee brewed and the longer it brewed, the stronger it got.
Ok, it wasn’t brewed in a tin pot with boiling water over rough grounds and egg shells on a…
