We look at the evening news and at the daily newspapers, they are rife with negatives. As a perennial optimist I write this tonight, even though my well has gone almost dry with despair; for our youths, for our seniors and for our country. Now we are looking at a hurricane making a b-line for Florida’s west coast, then points north. I don’t want to feed more negatives. So, let’s look at positives starting with the Coffee Caboose Roasters.

For the last few weeks, I have been looking at a Magnolia Gazette ad for the Coffee Caboose Roasters. The locations seem to have grown exponentially. That is positive. A woman with skills and visions has spent most of her life employed by others to their benefit.

Now it’s time for her to reap rewards for herself. A number of years ago she began roasting coffee beans from multiple coffee growing countries for her and her family’s use, and for gifts. It has been a period of research in methods and tastes. As a coffee aficionado but fully realizing that her taste may not be the same as the rest of the coffee drinking world, she has recruited discriminating tasters and took their advice which caused the elimination of some roasts, and the selection of others.

She used a facility in her husband’s business to develop her own vision as well as a business plan. She has had many contacts in the grocery business who were willing to add her flavors to their selections. She quickly outgrew the space allotted to her. She began evaluating multiple buildings in her hometown of Tylertown, Mississippi. After a few weeks she took a leap of faith and chose the railroad depot in Tylertown to be her all around facility. Using her design, she and her landlord have been doing an extensive renovation, modernizing, but yet keeping the flavor of the historic railroad depot.

Not only has the depot turned into a state-of-the-art roasting, packaging and shipping facility; it is going to be a single source location for retail coffee and associated items, but it will also be a coffee shop with an extensive coffee bar and tables. Keeping in mind that many people like a cigarette with their coffee, the smoke free environment will be enhanced by a fenced and covered patio for smokers.

Baking ovens for specialty breads and custom baked cakes have been delivered for another section of the Depot. She has been baking specialty cakes as an aside business for years. She is presently training two cake decorators to satisfy customer needs.

Her first-born son is now the chief roaster and operations manager. Early on, he developed the website where online orders have come from as far as Oklahoma, Michigan, Hawaii plus a few other states.

Now to the proprietor. She is a driven, visionary that probably should have started this business, years ago. The experience she has gained is invaluable, and her customers are benefitting from it. Why the name Coffee Caboose Roasters?

When she was a little girl, her grandfather was an Engineer on the City of New Orleans, the same one Arlo Guthrie made a household name. He took her on the engine and brought her a lifelong love of trains particularly of the now defunct caboose.

She was born in France on an Air Force Base. Therese, a good French name with the now surname of Jones, has brought much pride to her parents; one of which I happen to be.