In one of our sheds up back, these old, unearthed bottles sit on a shelf. I like to think I'm a bit adventurous when it comes to my dietary needs. I'll try just about anything once. That's coming from a guy who lives with someone who has eaten a coffee yogurt for lunch for 30 plus years and dines on only slices of cheese when pizzas are a dining option. Now, when it comes to soda, I'm drinking less and less these days. The powers that be continue to tell me that that decision is a good one. Often before 'doing papers', I'd grab a soda from the cooler at Cloutier's American gas station waiting room. It was from the Casco Bottling Company on Bell Street. It opened at the top and after sliding a dime into the slot at the side, you had to work your bottle over to the left and up through the iron grate. There were no Cokes or Pepsis in there. The choices were drinks like vanilla cream, orange, root beer, grape, strawberry and lemon-lime. I liked the strawberry the best. I always had a few dimes set aside in my delivery bag just for this delicious purpose. It gave me the needed energy to do the deed... delivering around 70 Evening Expresses in about an hour. With the help of my bike, I was fast!
My morning paper round was no fun at all!
ReplyDeleteYou said you are coming to Mt. Desert Island. If you would like to meet up for coffee, let me know. You can e-mail me @ mingtsainy@yahoo.com.
ReplyDeletej'aurais choisis le lemon-lime, j'aime beaucoup le gout, meme si je prefere boire du vin ;)
ReplyDeleteyou would have been fast back then, even without the sugar in the soda. but how i love your description of the soda dispenser.
ReplyDeleteWe are drinking less soda here too! However, periodically, my daughters and I walk a few blocks to a nearby take-out place that still serves Coca Cola in bottles with tops that have to be wrestled off with a bottle opener. I miss Grape Nehi and Royal Crown Cola. They are hard to find around here. :)
ReplyDeletePeriodically I throw these stray bottles that are in the shed AND in the garage into the trash.
ReplyDeleteMagically they appear back on their shelves.
I don't know.....
Elenka is very funny!
ReplyDeleteBack in the 70s, we lived outside of Philadelphia. Our son was a teenager and he because a kind of archaelogist, digging in creek beds and mounds near abandoned houses. He found a large quantity of old bottles and jugs of all types - many from the 19th century. Still has them, I think.
Old bottles are truely neat. If I had the right place I think I could fill a warehouse with them. Wine bottles are the same with their different shapes and colors.
ReplyDeleteVanilla cream! Oh, yummmmmmm. I'd forgotten.
ReplyDeleteI love this photo today. Once again you've made some images pop into my head that I haven't thought about for years. I remember those old horizontal soda machines with the sliding doors on top and then sliding those bottles along the path to remove them. I loved getting a bottle while dad was filling the tank with gas that cost about 17cents a gallon.
ReplyDeleteSoda can be addictive for some folks. My mother could not exist without her daily Pepsi. And I once worked with a woman that for years had a bottle of Coke for her breakfast. My mother lived a long life -- I wonder what happened to my "Coke" co-worker? -- barbara
ReplyDeletei've never been a big soda drinker, but the strawberry sounds yummy! :)
ReplyDeleteI loved those old machines too. We also had one at our corner store that you slid the lid open and the pop was sitting there in ice & water and you just dug out what you wanted and paid at the counter. It was So cold on a warm day!
ReplyDeleteOld joke song:
ReplyDeleteI don't want a frontal lobotomy.
I just want a bottle in front of me.
There were local brands of black cherry, orange and cream soda in NYC when I was a kid. I think the brand was Hoffman's. Yum. But I never drink soda any more, just water of iced tea at lunch. That stuff is pretty bad for you.
Coffee yoghurt?
ReplyDeleteI think I'll stay with Pepsi Max :-)