The gap between my and my children’s generation is defined not by the IPod or the Internet, but by a simple aluminum drink can. Half full. Warm. Sitting on the kitchen counter or the coffee table or by a chair on the front deck.
It is not just my children -- adults now -- who take only a few sips and then leave their drink to get warm and flat. Taking a few hummingbird like sips of nectar before flitting off seems to be common to all of their generation.
I keep my peace, but my thrifty soul recoils. If I told them that a soft drink was once a rare treat, something to be eagerly anticipated and then savored to the very last drop, they would categorize that information as more harping from dad about his youth, their idea of prehistory. They would roll their eyes and mutter under their breaths, “And you walked to school through the snow – uphill both ways – carrying your lunch in a syrup bucket.” I doubt they really know what a syrup bucket is.
The can is only a symbol, of course. The real divide is an attitude forged by economics. They would never dream that deciding whether to spend money on a soft drink required thought. To them, a soft drink is nothing more than a cheap commodity, like bottled water. (I still have difficulty actually paying for water; my grandfather would think it was just plain nuts.)
For us a soft drink – we never used that term; we called them soda pop, or used Coke as a generic for any kind of soft drink – was nectar.
My aunt, who was single and had a good job, bought Cokes by the case. I hoped that one day I would be as well off. I was out of college and well into my first job before I felt that prosperous.
In our youth, if we could scrounge up a nickel, my cousins and I would trudge up the country road to the store and get a soda pop. Sometimes the money was a generous gift, but more often it came doing chores or from collecting soft drink bottles and turning them in for two cents each. If we had a dime, we could buy a bag of peanuts to go with our drink.
The store was typical of its kind with a lone gas pump out front and a wide porch with hanging swings flanking the door. The store occupied the front room; the rest of the wood frame house was living quarters, territory that we rarely entered. In the front room were shelves with canned goods, bread, flour and meal and a large glass counter that had candy bars, chewing gum and other treats.
And there was the drink box.
It wasn’t like the ones in the stores in town. It was a water-filled cooler that farmers used to keep milk fresh until the dairy truck picked it up.
You plunged your arm deep into the icy water to fish around for your drink – in a glass bottle, of course.
Although we were just school kids, we had firm opinions about our purchases. If we were really thirsty, we went for quantity. That meant a Royal Crown Cola, which we never called anything but RC, or a Pop Kola. If we wanted to balance quantity and taste, we went for a Pepsi Cola, slightly smaller than an RC but bigger than a Coca Cola. (The store didn’t carry root beer because the owners, strict Baptists, wouldn’t stock anything with beer in the name).
If we wanted the best, though, we spent our nickel on a Coke.
We paid for our purchases, often in pennies, and sat on the front porch swing and savor our drinks. If we could affords peanuts, there was a standing debate about whether to pour the them into the drink bottle or to eat from the bag, taking a swig of pop in between. My cousins favored the former while I opted for the latter.
Experiencing the icy liquid and the bubbles on our tongue was the focus of our attention, The drinking itself was the event itself, not an auxiliary to some other activity. With our children’s generation, the drink is very much an incidental.
It was through the price of soft drinks that we learned about inflation. We had heard for months that soft drinks were going up to 6 cents. Then one day we went to the store and indeed they had. No bag of peanuts that day. And more scrounging whenever we wanted a treat.
I don’t think our kids ever scrounged for money to buy a soft drink, nor did they ever trudge up the road in the August heat to buy one.
I understand all of that intellectually, and I don’t complain aloud about the profligacy of leaving nearly full can of pop, but I do notice.
Perhaps one day they will tell their kids about the choices they had to make when gasoline shot up to $4 a gallon.
The writer can be contacted at billatthelake@gmail.com
