Hello, and welcome to Friday, Aug. 14, 2026 — Social Security, creamsicles, and tattoo removal all sharing the calendar, which covers pretty much every stage of a person's life in one day.
My calendar says it's Color Book Day, Creamsicle Day, Financial Awareness Day, Navajo Code Talkers Day, Tattoo Removal Day, Wiffle Ball Day, Social Security Day, and World Lizard Day. Grab a creamsicle, check your retirement account, and maybe finally deal with that tattoo from 2004 — the Wiffle ball can wait until after dinner.
Today In History:
1248: Construction begins on Cologne Cathedral, which eventually becomes the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe.
1756: Frontiersman Daniel Boone marries Rebecca Bryan.
1795: President George Washington signs the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, easing tensions left over from the Revolutionary War.
1900: Allied forces from Europe, America, and Japan seize Beijing, crushing the Boxer Rebellion.
1935: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law, guaranteeing income for the unemployed and retirees — the very reason for today's Social Security Day.
1945: President Truman announces Japan's unconditional surrender, effectively ending World War II in what becomes known as V-J Day.
1947: Pakistan achieves independence from British rule, with Liaquat Ali Khan sworn in as its first prime minister.
1975: The Rocky Horror Picture Show premieres in London, eventually becoming the longest theatrical release in film history thanks to its midnight-showing cult following.
1995: Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina's state military college, facing intense resistance and reported death threats before leaving the school within the week.
2000: Two onboard torpedoes explode aboard the Russian submarine Kursk in the Barents Sea, eventually killing all 118 crew members despite a rescue effort.
2007: Four coordinated suicide bombings strike Yazidi towns near Mosul, Iraq, killing more than 400 people in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks since 9/11.
Birthdays Today include: Halle Berry, actor (Monster's Ball); Steve Martin, actor and comedian (The Jerk, Father of the Bride); Magic Johnson, NBA Hall of Famer; Marcia Gay Harden, actor (Pollock); David Crosby, musician (Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Byrds).
If today's your birthday, too, happy birthday. Make it a good one.
* * *
OK, I admit it. I'm a coffee addict. I get "mugged" every single morning.
That's a habit I picked up many years ago, but it was strongly reinforced during my truck driving days, which are now (thank every deity, minor and major) behind me.
Back then, I bought a K-Cup machine and kept a rotating cast of blends and brands stocked in my galley like a tiny, caffeinated pharmacy. To the enviro warriors clutching their pearls over all that plastic: I hear you, I do, but I wasn't about to keep a full carafe of scalding coffee sloshing around my cab. Not when some genius in a sedan could cut me off, causing me to stand the truck on its nose, and turn that carafe into a coffee-flavored missile aimed squarely at the back of my skull. So I kept a covered travel mug or two, sized to fit snugly under the K-Cup spout, because I would like to die from literally anything other than my early morning inspiration.
Safety aside, the pods had other things going for them. Sure, they weren't cheap — the good ones especially — but the coffee stayed fresh until the exact moment I wanted it. Compare that to the one-pound cans I used to run through a drip machine, which started tasting like regret about four days after opening. And when I actually did the math, the pods cost roughly what I'd have spent on truck stop coffee anyway — which, for the record, is not the punchline it used to be. The Flying Js up in the northeast, in particular, made a genuinely solid cup. But given how I drove, I wasn't exactly camping out at truck stops regularly. The K-Cup machine meant I didn't have to, to get a decent brew.
That machine is still alive today. It's sitting on my kitchen counter right now, next to the microwave, like a retired racehorse put out to a much smaller pasture. By the time it got there, it had already logged close to a million miles and brewed several thousand cups of coffee. Any appliance that survives a truck cab deserves a medal, or at minimum a moment of respectful silence — five years of getting thrown around like a pinball, then another year-plus on my post-retirement counter, and the thing still runs like it's got something to prove.
The gourmet coffee habit, though, predates the trucking years entirely. For a long stretch, I worked in downtown Rochester, next door to what used to be Midtown Plaza. On the second floor, a husband-and-wife team — Cole and Jacquie — ran a Seattle's Best coffee stand, and aside from being good friends and a welcome part of my every day, they became, in every sense that mattered, my dealers.
Stopping there was less "part of my routine" and more "load-bearing pillar of my ability to function." They made a French Roast you could stand a fork up in — and I mean that as a compliment to the coffee and a warning to the fork, which likely wouldn't have survived even glancing contact with whatever we were generously calling "liquid." OK, I guess that sounds insulting, but I'll tell you with every ounce of honesty I have: I loved the stuff.
I tend to drink it black. Once in a while, I'll indulge in one of the syrup-laden dessert cups they call coffee, but I really don't need the added sugar and calories. If nothing else, the syrups tend to counteract any health benefits from the coffee itself. People who insist on the added stuff aren't drinking coffee; they're drinking a chocolate bar.
It's all personal taste, I know, but understand: I like my coffee the way I like my Death Stars — huge, black, and powerful enough to take out a planet. That stuff got me through some genuinely brutal mornings, looking approximately like a man who was awake.
When I eventually left that job, I lost touch with Cole and Jacquie. The shop's gone now. So is Midtown Plaza itself, having been torn down for a new project that the city government decided was needed — and once the place was torn down, it changed its mind. The lot remains empty to this day, some 20 years later. Kudos to the Rochester City Government for behaving exactly as I predicted it would. That place was the center of city life, and removing it had exactly the effect you might expect, increasing the speed of the death spiral of the town. Great job, guys.
The shopping mall as a species is dying out, and since Midtown went up in the early '60s as one of the pioneers, it kinda makes a grim sort of sense that it was also one of the first to get torn back down once the trend reversed. I still miss that coffee. Starbucks bought up Seattle's Best a while back, and every so often I spot the bag on a grocery shelf, but actual Seattle's Best storefronts? I've seen exactly one since, tucked into a hallway feeding the TTC in Toronto. That's it. That's the whole list. Genuinely sad.
These days I've landed on Peet's Major Dickason's Blend, which is the closest thing I've found to what Cole and Jacquie were pouring back in the day. Not identical. But close enough that I don't feel like I'm settling.
One of the specialties I keep in the house these days is Organic Mushroom Coffee Pods, which they describe as a low-acid brew, with Lion's Mane, Reishi, Cordyceps, Turkey Tail, and Chaga Mushrooms. Each has health benefits, though the evidence of this in today's mainstream medicine is not unexpectedly thin and mixed. Given what mainstream medicine has done with things like COVID-19, I'll take the lack of their backing on this stuff with a grain of salt. That's particularly true, given the lack of any serious downside in flavor. It sounds weird, but it's actually quite good, and it tends toward fewer digestive issues. Lower acid, and so on.
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, and I'm not giving out health advice. I'm not getting paid on that scale. I don't even like golf. I'm just telling you what I've been doing.
Maybe four days out of seven for that brew. Then the Peets.
I had a boss during my driving years who once observed that my body functions essentially as a filter: coffee goes in, snark and sarcasm come out, in direct and reliable proportion — a conversion rate most refineries would envy.
I'll admit that part hasn't changed a bit. If anything, I think I've gotten better at it, the way a fine wine improves with age, except replace "fine wine" with "irritable grey-bearded gink yelling about socialism" and you've got the actual picture. At least, I hope so — though if I'm wrong, nobody's told me, and frankly, at this point. I'd rather not know.
And you folks have to suffer through the finished product, day after day, apparently by choice. I'm grateful you keep coming back. Either you genuinely enjoy this, or the coffee's gotten to you, too.
Thought for the Day: FDR signed Social Security, promising a safety net for a nation just climbing out of the Depression. Possibly a good idea. Trouble is, the government runs it, so the real value of the idea gets distorted.
VIP members: What are your coffee habits? I'd like to hear.
Take care today. You've got a weekend in front of you. I'll see you here tomorrow.
Exclusively for our VIPs: The Democrats, The DSA, and Communists: You Can't Fit Water Between Them
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
Help us continue to report on and expose the Democrats’ gun control policies and schemes. Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member