Juvenile nectar of the gods

I read recently that soda pop will kill you. That should give pause for thought to those kids who go through eight or ten gallons of the swill every day. And no, don’t think that drinking diet stuff will make it better. According to the article, the sweetness in diet soda simply gives you a taste for other sweet and unhealthful confections, and that will pare even more years off than the regular trans-fats, cigarettes, and booze will. Scary world out there, my dear friends.

But, you know what amazes me is that I see kids (and some adults) chugging that stuff in such huge volumes. I primarily mention kids, however, because the whole societal attitude towards fizzy drinks is so different from what it was when I was growing up.

When I was a kid at sometime near the end of the Crusades, a bottle of pop (we called it ‘pop’ in our part of the world, elsewhere it can be called soda, or soda-pop, just substitute your own reference) cost a dime. My mother told me when she was a child, it was a nickel. Which ever, it was just a tiny coin, right? Practically free, right? Not so. A dime, when I was eight or nine, was a lot of money. My weekly allowance was 15-cents. So, if I blew a dime on pop, that meant I couldn’t buy a comic book – which also cost a dime. I usually opted for the comic, avid reader that I am.

So, pop was a very rare ‘treat’. That’s right, it was special occasion stuff. And, consumption was never more than one dinky little 6-ounce bottle of classic Coke. (that’s right, those classic curvy bottles contained less than a cup; compare that with the jeroboam sized bottles available to kids today). And how that bottle was savored. It was ambrosia; it was like fine cognac to the tastebuds of a kid.

We never had pop at home. Well, maybe at Christmas, or a birthday party, but that was it. Actually, birthday parties were more inclined to be Kool-Aid events, because it was cheaper. Mom could whip up a drum of the stuff – you know, powder and 14-pounds of sugar, for a fraction of what pop would have cost.

So, I say this only because I am not surprised that the medical fraternity is distressed about pop consumption and soda pop companies that seem to have not much more concern about general health than does ‘Big Tobacco.’

But, I can’t do anything about it. If parents want to court diabetes and tooth rot, that has to be up to them to address. Perhaps holding back on the largesse that seems to be bestowed on kids these days might help.

Anyway, the soda pop of today seems to largely revolve around the machinations of the ‘big two’ companies, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. But, when I was a kid there were more options. There were little pop companies that produced some fine elixirs that I actually miss.

A favorite of mine always was Orange Crush, but OC in the brown, ripply bottles that held 7-ounces and there were real bits of orange suspended in the solution. I have a souvenir bottle (empty) and it puts me in touch with my childhood.

You have your Coke and Pepsi, but actually my desired cola was one called Kik. I don’t know what happened to Kik. I guess it was sort of like Studebaker. Just couldn’t compete with the big guys in the cola wars.

I mention Orange Crush, but the best orange was one called Whistle, which had a unique flavor I’d love to savor just once more. It was rare and obscure even when I was a kid, so to find a bottle in a cooler was a special occasion indeed.

We’re all familiar with Canada Dry ginger ale. But, there were other ginger ales, like Felix, with the cartoon cat as its logo. There was also a ginger ale called Gurd’s, and I think it deserved to die out just because of the disagreeable sounding company name.

I’ve noticed that there has been kind of a revival of cottage-industry soda manufacturing, and that’s’ refreshing. The marketers of those companies are wise to see the product put into classic looking bottles.

Now, as I realize I am beginning to sound excessively Andy Rooney, I’ll take my leave.