Last Friday, in a cemetery north of Philadelphia, off Route 1, across from a Radisson, around the corner from a Texaco station and behind a Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùwe buried my best friend from the Miami Beach days. He was 43 years old. Breast cancer.
As I stood there looking at the quiet casket (traffic from Route 1 irreverently loud in the background), I thought about all that George Zifferblatt and I had done together as teenagers: the boating, the spearfishing, the lobsterpoaching, the wild boar hunting (I know, a wild boar hunter doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t quite fit my nerdy image). And now for all these things (and so much more) to climax, to converge, and to end at a single point, a hole in the ground behind a Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts? It makes no sense.
Yet because so much of the world does make sense, irrevocably so, in that it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s logical, rational, purposeful (the sun gives us light and heat, plants make air, gravity holds us to the earth, the heart pumps blood), it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s the height of absurdity for human life (the beneficiary of all these sensible, logical, and purposeful natural phenomena) to end in such meaninglessness. How can so many of the individual and finite things of nature?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùin and of themselves replete with points and opulent with purpose?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùso beautifully, precisely, and artfully climax into nothing more than a hole behind Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts?
You really like Dunkin’ Donuts, huh? I think it’s pretty cool that so many things in your life are seemingly synonomous with the characteristics of a donut shop. It’s sweet and warm seeming, kind of like something you would find at dunkin’ donuts to go with a cocoa to warm you up and make you feel better.
a guy died from breast cancer? that can happen? wow…
Jump: I am so sorry about your friend dying. And I understand how ironic and weird it can seem.
TMJCCloud: Yes, men can die of breast cancer. Men cannot get ductal carcinoma like my friend has, because men do not have milk ducts, but yes, they can get other forms of breast cancer.
There’s something creepy about copywriting hacks writing these fake blogs for Corporate America.
signed,
Krispy Kreme’s ad agency
Interesting blog. I couldn’t grasp how you could possibly be posting in a consistent capacity since 1999.
Then I noticed the obvious gaps in the blog history.
Still…..an interesting idea.
oooh smeg- now i’m hungry and I’ve recently ditched junk food… CRRRRRRRRRIPES!
sorry for your loss dude
Thats so sad…yet increasingly ironic as you read the rest of your blog entrys…all things are linked to dunkin donuts
Sorry for your loss. As a resident of the City of Brotherly Love I express my sorrows.
But on a totally unrelated note, why did Dunkin’ Donuts get rid of the “Dunkin’ Donut”? The one that looked, well, it was the regular donut but it had a little extra on one part so you could dunk in coffee. Why oh why must they take my “dunkin’ donut”?
Who knew that there are enough interesting tid bits of information out there warrant putting up a blog dedicated completely to all things ‘Dunkin.’ And then get it listed on bloggers ‘blogs we’ve noticed’ list at that.
My Father is buried near a very large beer bottle in a cemetery that is divided by the Garden State Parkway in Newark, New Jersey. I remember thinking that his final resting place was far from restful (incredible traffic noise). While his closest friends were arguing with the Rabbi about whether a certain prayer could be recited (I don’t think there were enough Jewish men there) and one mentioned that, “Every man buried in this cemetary is Jewish,” another commented that, “at least he didn’t have to go too far for a beer.” Trust me, you will think of your friend every time you notice a Dunkin’ Donuts. I smile and say hello every trip I make past the beer bottle on the Parkway. Unfortunately, the neighborhood is so bad (we’ve had countless relatives mugged while visiting gravesites of loved ones) that the best we can do is a “drive-by” visit until the neighborhood quiets down. We have decided NOT to throw the rocks we would normally place on the gravestone.
http://chinesetoenglish.blogspot.com/
this is my blog
Sorry for your loss. This has been a painful time for you and your friends family. I hope that he felt he’d made his mark on the world.
we had a Dunkin’ Donuts place opened in Tel Aviv and it closed fast. A total flop. Our doughnuts have no holw in it and we eat them, whoever still does, unaware of the health risks, once a year on Hanukkah.
But really, even if you are doing this on behalf of the corporation, how about some fish and chips posts…
With warm regards,
Corinna Hasofferett
I think in the greater sceme of things, as humans our climax only comes once we have passed on (and no I am not refering to an eternal life of any sort). We provide nothing to the world untill we can fertilise the earth. We are not the centre of the uneverse and should feel lucky that we even have a fraction of time to enjoy “nature” and the sacrafice that these objects can provide us.
You are a marketing genius for Dunkin’. But, I have to ask something of the people who’ve given their sympathies regarding the burial behind a Dunkin’ - “What are you thinking? They did Not bury a guy behind a Dunkin’ Donuts. Don’t you think that’s pretty absurd?”
Could you answer a question? Why did you develop this site? It seems like an excellent way to market your services to Dunkin’, unless you’re already doing that - are you? Just curious.
Thanks for the comments. I will try to write something up this weekend as to why I created DunkinDonutsTalk.com. But real quick, what I can say is that I have no affiliation with Dunkin’ Donuts other than I love their coffee and donuts, in fact, I live in Central Illinois and I cannot find a Dunkin’ Donuts within 100 miles of me - so I have my coffee beans delivered at home!
hello, to you all.. funny enough i am writing to you all from a university computer room from somewhere in england.. i am not sure i wanted to write to you about dunkin something donuts or death or even holes in the ground or in the heart.. i wanted to give you all the strange and outrageous feeling of being in a million places in time and space.. of being there in your comformable houses, typing away your fears, marketed or not, of being somewhere in the eyes of a beautiful dark girl, and here you are in a room with 144 computers, with over 50 people, a melting pot of ideas, dissertations,assignments, books, websites, chips, drinks, music, headphones, mobile phone, lost and gained friends… the greatest thing is that in the middle of all this one message has made quite a hand full of us stop… think and then shiver the pain away.. my fear right now, besides of having a pretty basic and poor level of english and embarassing my shade, my greatest fesr is that we all will eventually go to sleep, dream of beautiful pink pigs flying around happy and we will all forget… it is not the burial, it not the coffee, the donuts, the absurdity of life and the beauty of its end, but the coincidence of haing one story bring us all together.. in writing, in typing, in reading, in drinking coffee… sorry, but i have never had the chance to drink that coffee and eat those donuts but this message has changed for that possibility forever… good luck to you all and hope that the power of the words, the magic of imagination will not stand in your future, will not turn a plan into a reluctant maybe.. peace to you all and loads of pecan nuts…
Tragedy does happen, both on a small scale(as in your case) and large scale (as in Asia on Dec. 26). Given everything that can go wrong at any second, and all the things that have to go perfectly each day to avoid those pitfalls, one should be awed and extremely grateful each day that goes by without unfortunate incident. That we’re surprised when things go badly is a testament to the rose-color glassed eyes of the human spirit.
Sorry for your loss. My mom has breast cancer.
Anyway, I’ve never heard of Virginia, Illinois. Where is it located? I went to school in Bloomington for awhile.
Flash movies,
flash games,
funny flash movies,
flash heaven,
flash humor,
flash stuff,
flash rocks,
animation games
HELLO MCFLY!! there is NO friend that died, he makes up stories that have duncan donuts in them….Stop giving him the condolences!!!
BTW, congrats on having this Blog on Blogger main page.
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Okay, I know this isn’t related to this post, but I just wanted to tell you that there’s a font called “Debussy” available and that you might like it. It’s here:
dafont.com/en/theme.php?cat=905
I kind of feel like not commenting ’cause to me 25 comments is ALOT! But I’m going to.
I am so sorry about your friend
May he Rest In Peace.
You make a really great statement towards the end of this blog. You have great and well-developed thoughts. The thing is when I first read that most of the things on earth make sense my reaction was “No.” But, yeah, scientifically we have that knowledge. But the truth of our own beliefs cease to be confirmed. Which brings me to believing we do not have most things figured out.
I don’t think of science to much or associate it with things in a direct way but that’s just how I am.
I also really think it’s very interesting that Dunkin Donuts plays a role of it’s own throughout your blog. How it seems to find a place in so many of your situational life experiences.
The actuality of the last paragraph is in a sense beautiful.
Wow, that was alot.
Dear Jump,
I felt your loss in your words and thougts. I hope that time will empty your heart of pain and refill it with the joyful memories of your friend.
You spoke of the elements that give us life and how miraculous they are and how unmiraculous your friends death seemed; the Sioux believe that life is made of fire, stone, water and green (plants). They pray to each element as life giving “people”. They believe in the cirlce of life, that we return to the water or the green. We then give life again…..and so it goes.
That my friend is a miracle, whether it is in New Jersey or New Zealand!
Peace be with you.
And here I thought I was going to read some funny story about how the hole came about in the donut. Was that an intentional pun?
It saddened me to read that you have lost a dear friend to cancer. I can only imagine your feelings for I have not had to deal with that (yet) in my life, although I have dealt with my wife having a chronic disease for over 20 years, and there’s no cure. And now a mother-in-law who is suffering with Alzheimer’s. Life is full of terrible things we have to bear. Life at times does not seem fair. But, I would agree with one of the others who responded, that we should be grateful (to God) for each blessing and all the things that don’t go wrong. Which is most of the things, most of the time.
I’d also like to suggest that life doesn’t end with a hole in the ground. If it does, then why should anyone care about how they live their life; on what basis should we care about morals or ethics? But we know that there is within each of us a sense of what is right and decent. We are born with this because we have all been created in God’s likeness. Our lives are not over with the hole in the ground. The question is whether a person (soul/spirit) will go on to live with God or apart from him for eternity. The only way to be assured that a person will be with God is to put his/her faith in Jesus Christ, for his death paid for all of our screw ups and rebellion against God (i.e., our sin). If you don’t believe we have a problem with sin, then why do you have to teach a young child to do right, but doing wrong comes naturally?
By the way, C.S. Lewis (a British scholar and atheist who became a Christian late in life) wrote a small book entitled The Problem of Pain. In it he says that God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts to us in our pain. Pain and suffering are not some way for a vindictive or sadistic God (he is neither) to “get even” with those who have turned their back on him. Rather, it is the way he provides a wake-up call, that we might realize we need to turn our focus to God and stop being so self-centered. It is much like running a fever: it alerts a person to an infection which requires attention. (Of course, there is more to this issue of pain/suffering, but that is the essence.)
When a person’s clothing wears out, they throw them in the garbage without a second thought. Some use old clothes for grease rags to get one last function out of them before tossing them asside. Listen, there are no dead people in holes anywhere, not behind Dinkin’ Donuts, not behind old churches, nor on grassy hills. They have stepped out of their body, tossing it asside like junk clothing that is no longer fit to be worn, and have moved on, for better, or for worse.
BTW… nobody has to die of cancer if they don’t want to. There is a cure for every disease.
An on-going debate between my friends and I is D&D Ice-coffee vs. Hot Coffee, which one is better. Decisions Decisions.
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sorry i must say this. this blog is just so cute. i was a public relations students and we’ve learnt bout this dude who got pissed off at dunkin and started a hate web. but dunkin was smart enough to turn the table around. dunkin bought over the website from the dude and it’s handling complaints and sorts since then - legally. i think it’s just the .org .net difference. i forgot.
but cool to know someone started this site for dunkin. way to go america
Last Friday, in a cemetery north of Philadelphia, off Route 1, across from a Radisson, around the corner from a Texaco station and behind a Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùwe buried my best friend from the Miami Beach days. He was 43 years old. Breast cancer.
As I stood there looking at the quiet casket (traffic from Route 1 irreverently loud in the background), I thought about all that George Zifferblatt and I had done together as teenagers: the boating, the spearfishing, the lobsterpoaching, the wild boar hunting (I know, a wild boar hunter doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t quite fit my nerdy image). And now for all these things (and so much more) to climax, to converge, and to end at a single point, a hole in the ground behind a Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts? It makes no sense.
Yet because so much of the world does make sense, irrevocably so, in that it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s logical, rational, purposeful (the sun gives us light and heat, plants make air, gravity holds us to the earth, the heart pumps blood), it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s the height of absurdity for human life (the beneficiary of all these sensible, logical, and purposeful natural phenomena) to end in such meaninglessness. How can so many of the individual and finite things of nature?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùin and of themselves replete with points and opulent with purpose?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùso beautifully, precisely, and artfully climax into nothing more than a hole behind Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Donuts?
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didn’t know guys could get brest cancer. Sorry
How can a guy get breast cancer? Join the Brian Leiter project.
Like they say to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail.
That’s very sad. I hope there was no connection between George’s cancer and the consumption of Dunkin’ Donuts.
Americans seem to be so obsessed with junk food crazes. Let’s all lay off junk food like Dunkin’ Donuts for a healthier, longer-living American lifestyle!
I am a Midwest transplant from Cape Cod… and believe me when I say…. No one makes Coffee like Dunkin’Donuts… And the donuts around here are just puffs of sugar !!…. I have friends and family shipping me pounds of the good stuff monthly! I crave for a “regular” large Coffee !!! A Midwest Dreama ! hil
Am I getting wrong here?
I see a lot a good hearted people sympathising with the author for his friends loss….
But as I see it, there are no friends lost for the author - breast cancer or otherwise!
He had just taken adapted that story from another column written by one Mr.CLIFFORD GOLDSTEIN for Adventist Review, presumambly because of the charm with which he uses his language.
All you have to do is to click on the link ‘jump’ to read the full article.
Iam very sorry for your lost.
Hey, does anyone know if/when we’ll see a DD on the west coast? I am a Boston transplant and desperately miss the Omwich/Cinnamon coffee combo!!!
i enjoyed reading the comments that people sent you. some people know how to use the english language beautifully! others, wow! guess reading-writing-grammer classes were seriously lacking in their gradeschool! anyway, hello from Cape Cod!
live free, love deeply, learn always!
Cool site! Crazy all this stuff about donuts. Come look at my site. it’s a riot!
http://sportsjunkies.blogspot.com/
Thank-you to Whoever Coreected the Missefromed readers and that this was written by someone else are blogller here just liked the article. oh and P.S. Men DO have milk ducts, just not Enogh Estrogene to produce Milk
we dont have dunkin donuts in scotland anymore.
in ‘96 (when we did have ‘em) I would treat myself to 1 or 2 Capuccino Blasts every day when I worked in glasgow. those were the most perfect drinks in the history of all beverages… although the raspberry slush puppie drinks are realistically more likely to get me out of bed.
on the up-side… the dunkin donuts outlet was replaced by an italian coffe and cake house.
weather: overcast.
preferred coffee: lavazza espresso with a sucrose additive!
I used to live in Rochester NY. with my family. One day we were going to take a train to to NYC. I sent my wife and kids to the station to wait for the train I went to Duncan Donuts before we left to have some on the ride. Needless to say by the time I got back we had all missed the train.
hi…good site.
hi nice site.
taste good