Remembering that Special Shot

Being an hermudgeon [hermit/curmudgeon], Randall Nathan doesn’t like to be seen in public, unless coffee or baseball are involved. When they are both involved, he is willing even to be seen with Franklin and Eleanor, Jake and Jenny Newland’s pot-bellied pigs, because The Brothers Jim, who run The Buddy Mutts Café, where you cannot enter unless you have a dog with you, think that F&E are a special breed of strange canine, especially since they can do card tricks. If they beat the brother Jim who is the sculptor at a trick, he has to change the TV to “Animal Planet.” They always win. They’re not really all that smart, but they use a marked deck.

Anyway, Randall and Jake took Franklin and Eleanor and went to Buddy Mutts for OTB, which is not off track betting, even though it’s usually off the track. It’s Old Time Baseball.

They drank a special coffee brew this morning, prepared by the other brother Jim, the one who has installed a compost toilet at Buddy Mutts, in memory of Bobby Thomson. The coffee is called “The Accidental Hero,” the way Thomson referred to himself. It’s a dark roast called Miracle Brew, with a shot of espresso called “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”