Einstein and Coffee

 I think it was Einstein who said that a hundred times a day he was reminded that his inner and outer life were dependent on the labors of other people, living and dead. Maybe he wrote that thought down on a snowy January morning, well before dawn, when the plow truck rumbled by his house, clearing his way to the market for coffee, because the bean jar was empty, and arriving there at 7:00 am he found yet another good person plowing the parking lot, and two more inside turning on the lights and putting muffins in the oven. Then he bought the coffee picked by someone he didn’t know, far away, but roasted right there, and named after a sea captain who lived on his  road a hundred years ago, and managed a salmon cannery, back before there were snow plows, or cars, or electric lights in the windows of a market in the snow.