So where did the phrase “a cup of Joe” originate? For the book, that’s easy. Good buddy Marcus won the naming contest a few weeks ago with his suggested A Cup O’ Joes, which was the first suggestion to arrive in our Comments section and my immediate favorite. Yeah, that’s the commercial, and yeah, if you haven’t bought a copy already, please do so. But from where did the term “a cup of Joe” actually emanate?
There’s no conclusive answer, but like many things, there are lots of opinions (making it a near perfect topic for Internet musing, I suppose). Here are a few I found.
The Navy Angle
One hypothesis holds that “a cup of Joe” is based on a US Navy booze ban. Secretary of the Navy Josephus “Joe” Daniels prohibited alcohol on ships in 1914. After that edict, the strongest thing a sailor could drink on board a US Navy vessel was coffee. Angry sailors coined “a cup of Joe” to describe their coffee as a result.
The Big Jamoke?
Language historians think “a cup of Joe” didn’t enter the English language until around 1930. Linguists think the term came from an adaptation of the invented word “jamoke,” which was a combination of java and mocha. “Jamoke” may have become “Joe.” Eh, that seems a bit farfetched to me, but the term “jamoke” sounds kind of cool to me. I like it.
An Average Joe
A third hypothesis is that the word “Joe” means something common. You know, like “the average Joe” (understandably, not one of my favorite expressions). Because coffee is such a common man’s drink (a common woman’s drink, too, based on the long line of women I always see at any Starbuck’s ordering obscene $8 coffee-based concoctions), the expression “a cup of Joe” emerged. I don’t put much stock in this one, either.
So what’s the answer?
Beats me. Maybe good buddy and coffee empresario Ren of Batdorf & Bronson Coffee can weigh in with his opinion. Or maybe one of our other readers knows. Let’s hear what you think.
My take on all the above? “A cup of Joe” just seems to fit. I am not the sharpest matzo in the box when I wake up in the morning, and I need my coffee to sharpen my thinking. “A cup of Joe” is an expression that fits perfectly for me. I’m enjoying mine now.
Oh, one more thing…don’t forget to buy your own copy of A Cup O’ Joes! And don’t forget to click on the popup ads.
A Cup O’ Joes: I loved that title the moment I saw it and I knew it would be the winner, and Gresh and I felt the same way even after all the other suggestions arrived. We thank you all for your ideas. Marcus, we especially thank you.
The book is just about done. Good buddy Jack Lewis wrote a killer Foreword, we just finished the front and rear cover (that’s what you see above), and we’re feeling good about this. We’re going to take one more swing through before we hit publish, and then you’ll be able to order A Cup O’ Joes directly from Amazon. The Kindle e-version will follow shortly thereafter.
Marcus, we’re going to send a signed copy to you. Give us a little while. I have to get a copy, sign it, USPS it to Gresh, he’ll sign it, and then it will be on its way to you. Thanks again.
I should have won. It was politics, I tell ya…that’s the only reason the Axis prevailed. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
That photo above? Like I said, I should have won. That’s my photo. I watched the two judges, stooges of the Axis powers, deliberate for several minutes, even delaying announcement of the winner while they looked for a plausible reason to deny what was rightfully mine.
Okay, back to the beginning. Me and the boys used to hang out at Bob Brown’s BMW dealership on Saturday mornings, and back in the day, Bob and crew were always coming up with great ideas…you know, things to do. They outdid themselves on the Shoot and Scoot deal. You see, one of Bob’s BMW customers owned a camera store down in Chino Hills. Between Bob and the camera guy, they had this idea: Combine a day-ride to the Chino Planes of Fame Museum and a photo contest. It worked for me. I ride (my ride was a Triumph Tiger in those days) and Lord knows I’m a photography phreak. I was in.
The day started with photo ops and donuts at Bob’s dealership, with a very attractive young model. Attractive, yes. Creative or unusual? Hardly. But I grabbed the obligatory fashion shot…
From there, it was a quick ride to the Chino Airport’s Planes of Fame Museum. I’ve always loved that place. The idea was to grab an interesting photo or twenty in a place jam packed full of interesting photo ops. Trust me on this, boys and girls…if you’ve never been to the Planes of Fame Museum, you need to go.
Anyway, these are a few of my favorite shots from that day…I was working the Nikon for all it was worth and I was having a good time. I could win this, I thought.
My last few photos of the day were of my reflection in that big radial engine you see above, and then it hit me. Like a politician who knows never to let a good crisis go to waste, when I have a camera that’s how I feel about reflective surfaces. I was getting some good shots of myself in the polished prop hub, and then it hit me.
“Hey Marty,” I said. Marty is my riding buddy. You’ve seen him here in the ExNotes blog in many places. Mexico. Canada. All over the US. “Get in the picture right here.”
And he did. That’s when I grabbed the photo you see at the top of this blog, and as I saw the image through the viewfinder, I knew I had a winner. It captured what the day had been about. Great photography. Air cooling and internal combustion. Riding. Friendship.
So we rode from the Planes of Fame Museum over to the photo shop and uploaded all our shots. We returned that evening when the winners would be announced. I wasn’t interested in placing. I wanted to win. And I knew I would. Or at least I knew I should. The funny thing was, the two judges were the camera store owner and the local Canon sales rep. I could see they were having a tough time. They were down to two photos, mine was one of them, and they were struggling with the decision. I think my photo was the clear winner. But alas, I shot it with a Nikon. This was a Canon contest being at least partly sponsored by a BMW dealer (and I rode a Triumph). The Germans and the Japanese. The Axis powers. Still trying to make up for World War II. Not that it bothers me. Much. But I should have won.
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This is going to be one of those rambling, topic-hopping blogs that flits like a butterfly in a bed of flowers. You know, touching lightly on a variety of topics and then flitting to the next one for a pollen fix.
First up: Do you have a favorite family restaurant? We’ve got two. One is Rancho Las Magueyes, a Mexican place right around the corner. I know everyone there by their first name, and they all know Susie and me. And my shooting buddies (we always have lunch there after a day on the range). The other is an Italian restaurant. It’s Di Pilla’s in Rosemead, and I’ve been going there for thirty years. Susie and I always get a small pizza and a pasta dish, we share some of both while we’re there, and we’ll bring the rest home (it’s good for another two meals for both of us). I was in Los Angeles last week to renew my passport and we stopped at Di Pilla’s for exactly what I described above (a small pizza with olives and mushrooms, and Dante’s angel hair pasta). It’s just wonderful…the closest you’ll ever get to Heaven without a one-way ticket. If you stop in there, tell Claudia Joe sent you.
Next topic…the Superbowl. I guess the game was okay. It used to be I would occasionally watch the Superbowl just for the halftime show and the commercials. I’m not much of a football fan (never have been), but the commercials and the halftime show used to make the 4-hour slog worthwhile. Not any more, though. At least not to me. I thought the halftime show was revolting, and if my kids were at home, I would have changed the channel. Is it me, or was it like going to a strip club? Maybe I’m just getting old. I don’t like twerking coming into my family room on a widescreen TV, and I didn’t understand a good 70% of the commercials. They weren’t clever or entertaining, and I wasn’t sure what most of them were advertising. The commercial would end and I’d wonder: What was the product? Ah, there’s no maybe about it…I am getting old. But hell, even old people still buy stuff. After four long hours of Superbowl LIV, there’s nothing I’m going to purchase as a result of watching any of those commercials. Color me cranky, but I thought the whole thing was a stupid waste of my time. That’s four hours I won’t get back. It won’t happen again.
I do buy stuff, though. Lots of it. In fact, my new goal as a senior citizen is to make sure my outgo equals my income (I keep telling the kids if there’s anything left after I’m gone, it’s strictly the result of an computational error). And to help me meet that goal, I think I’m buying a new motorcycle. One that has no fraud associated with freight and setup, as is typically encountered at most dealers. Maybe around the end of this month. Watch for more details. Before I do that, though, I want to get my TT250 running. I don’t ride as much as I should, and my TT250 carb gummed up from disuse. I’ll have to refer to my free CSC TT250 shop manual (why don’t all the manufacturers do that?) on how to clean the carburetor, but I’m not worried about the job. I hear the TT250 manual is pretty well written. I’m thinking I’ll get around to the TT250 this week or next.
More rambling, this time about Facebook and the endless supply of brainless memes that flow from its feed. I like Facebook and I like to keep up with my friends and my memories, like that photo above of good buddy Carl and me up on Glendora Ridge Road with the CSC 150 Baja Blaster I rode to Cabo and back. But the rest of the Facebook schtick…wow, it gets old fast. Is anyone else here tired of the mindless political ranting on Facebook? Look, who I vote for is a decision I’ll make without any help from CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, the Russians, or you. It’s my vote, and all the breathless exhortations by Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper, and Sean Hannity will matter not one whit. It’s what happens in a free country. Mindlessly sharing memes on your Facebook feed (I know, there’s a lot of redundancy in that phrase) isn’t going to change a thing. Folks, get a life. Grow up. Vote, and then move on. It’s what we do in America.
On to a new topic…I’m afraid this coronavirus business is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I have good friends in China from my Chongqing and Riding China adventures. I recently wrote to one of them to see how things were going over there. In a word, it’s bad. Real bad. The streets are deserted in China, no one is going out, companies are shutting down, travel is severely restricted, and the market is plummeting. Their economy is tanking. Approximately 2000 people a day are getting infected (and that number is likely going to increase). I loved my time in China and I love the Chinese people. I respect their engineering and manufacturing prowess. I hope things get better for them soon.
A happier topic…I’ve been spending more time on the range. If you didn’t see the 9mm cast bullet comparo, you might want to take a look at it. I’m going to start shooting the 9mm jacketed bullet series in another week or two. Jacketed bullets are frequently more accurate than cast bullets, so I’m excited about how that’s going to go. I was tremendously impressed with the Sig Scorpion and how it handled cast bullets. We’ll see if it brings home the bacon with jacketed bullets.
One of my shooting buddies is a California Corrections Officer, and he told me about their qualification course with the Mini 14 (the California Department of Corrections uses the Ruger Mini 14, one of my favorite rifles, as an issue weapon). They qualify with the B-21 target, and when I was at the target manufacturing operation where I buy all my targets I asked if they stocked that one. The guy behind the counter was surprised, and he told me the only folks who ever want that target are CDC officers. But they had it, and then it was my turn to be surprised. The B-21 target is huge. I’m going to have to make a bigger target stand for it. I’m thinking maybe our next informal milsurp match will be with it. My objective is to shoot a higher score than my CDC buddy, and he’s real good.
And on that subject, we’re still toying with the idea of a postal match. You know, one where we specify the course of fire and the target design, you mail your targets to us, we score them, and there’s some kind of a prize for first, second, and third place. We’d make it for handguns only and spec the distance at 50 feet, and we’d make the prizes significant enough to bump up participation. Like maybe a Gear’d Hardware watch for first place, with a book and a T-shirt for second and third place. Let us know…if we did that, would you participate?
Last topic for today, folks: Baja. Yes, Baja beckons. I aim to get down there sometime soon and then again later this year. Maybe stop in to see Baja John in Bahia de Los Angeles. See the whales in Scammon’s Lagoon. I’ll be on my motorcycle, and of course, I’ll be insured with BajaBound. Gresh will be along, maybe even on Zed now that his Kawi 900 resurrection has resumed. Whaddaya think?
Good buddy Bob, who won our moto book drawing last quarter, sent this nice note to us a couple of days ago and we wanted to share it with you…
Hey, Joe, just wanted to drop you a quick line to thank you for the Destinations book. I can see it’s a compilation of your articles from Motorcycle Classics (one of my favorite motorcycle periodicals, the other being Motorcycles for Sport and Leisure, from the UK). You’ve done a lot of two-wheel travel, a lot more than I have, as I re-entered riding about 12 years ago after being off two wheels for several decades. I enjoyed your writeups on some of the places I’ve been on two wheels and other places I haven’t ridden, but have driven on family trips. I’m in NorCal and, as you know, there are many, many fantastic places to ride up here.
Thank you for your promotion of motorcycling on machines which don’t weigh 900 pounds. The smaller bikes are very capable and I say that although I am by no means a small dude. I think your development of the CSC bikes is great and I also have interests in the REs, Janus, Genuine 400 and the Yamaha SR400. Maybe it’s just a retro frame of mind, I don’t know, but I like proper motorcycles like those.
Thanks once again for the book and best wishes in your endeavors. Here are a few photos from my moto expeditions in the area, just for fun:
Bob, that’s awesome. We’re glad you’re enjoying Destinations, and thanks for the kind note and the great photos. Ride safe, good buddy!
If you’d like to order your own copy of Destinations, you can do so here.
And don’t forget to sign up for our quarterly motobook giveaway. All you need to do is enter your email address to receive automatic email updates, and you’re entered into our contest. The next drawing will be at the end of June, and we’d like to see you win!
From there, it was a quick ride to the Chino Airport’s Planes of Fame Museum. I’ve always loved that place. The idea was to grab an interesting photo or twenty in a place jam packed full of interesting photo ops. Trust me on this, boys and girls…if you’ve never been to the Planes of Fame Museum, you need to go.
I do buy stuff, though. Lots of it. In fact, my new goal as a senior citizen is to make sure my outgo equals my income (I keep telling the kids if there’s anything left after I’m gone, it’s strictly the result of an computational error). And to help me meet that goal, I think I’m buying a new motorcycle. One that has no fraud associated with freight and setup, as is typically encountered at most dealers. Maybe around the end of this month. Watch for more details. Before I do that, though, I want to get my TT250 running. I don’t ride as much as I should, and my TT250 carb gummed up from disuse. I’ll have to refer to my free 
Bob, that’s awesome. We’re glad you’re enjoying 