How can you not enjoy a cup of coffee from a cup like this? It just screams cozy diner. I'm expecting a slice of pie to magically appear next to it. Or maybe a stack of pancakes with a sticky pitcher of maple flavored syrup and a huge dollop of icy cold butter.

old cup I've mentioned that our office is nestled in the elbow of a river. A little outcropping of land, almost an island, which looks like it might not be here in another hundred years. While tossing the frisbee for Zeke I wandered along the river bank. Sticking out of the bank's edge, washed anew by Spring thaw, are strange, old chunks of metal, assorted textiles, and this cup.

It looks like this property might have once been a dump. That or creative landfill. Here out East, unlike the fields of Nebraska where I grew up, dirt is a rare commodity. You don't go stacking up five feet of precious dirt when you could be putting down three or four feet of cheap fill topped by a foot of nice dirt. Over the years I suspect folks have been creative about what they use to fill those bottom few feet.

Organized landfills are a recent development. Wandering through the woods we sometimes run across an old house foundation. A few dozen feet behind it, maybe over a small cliff, will be the household dump. Old bottles, metal toys, bed springs, unrecognizable tin cans of foodstuffs, and dried up tongues of old shoes with once sturdy soles curling like fairy slippers.

No idea on the date for this cup. The bottom features an embossed Buffalo figure with CHINA and USA text embossed below. The handle is just the right size for my index finger, smooth and snug. A working farmer with large, work worn and calloused fingers might grab the whole cup and not bother with the handle. Ladies of the time might slide a white gloved finger through the handle but the angle of the cup is all wrong for extending a delicate pinky finger. It is a coarse and down-to-business kind of cup. You don't drink tea out of it. Coffee. Hot, burnt, strong coffee and lots of it.

update: discovered that the cup was made by the Buffalo China company of New York. This page shows the exact marking (third down, far right) and labels it as Buffalo China mid 50s-present.

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