Soda Pop

Back in the days before diet sodas, the range of beverage selection was pretty straightforward. Mostly, you chose by color, and hoped that flavor could be imagined along with the color. Then the diet colas arrived. Tab was my favorite, and I got addicted. It’s not been on the market for a while, and I wonder if there was a secret ingredient (no, I didn’t have a kava with my java this morning.) Then the decaf diet sodas came along, and I waited to for the next step: non-carbonated. If you have a decaf diet noncarbonated beverage, what do you call it? Water. My grandmother would have laughed to think that anyone would pay for a bottle of water. “People will buy anything.” It would be like us imagining people buying canned air. I will resist making any paranoid comments about that one, and note that in the computer world such an idea is not out of the question.
I was raised where we called the bubbly koolaid “pop.” I went to college where it was called “soda.” In the movies showing rural America, they make it sound like the whole United States used to call it “soda pop,” but I haven’t found where that happens yet.
My uncle bottled Dr. Pepper way out in Texas during all of my childhood years. When Uncle Don came to visit, there was extra cause to celebrate. He didn’t believe in homes without Dr. Pepper. Since our home was a soda-free zone, this was a rather intoxicating influx of good stuff into our lives. The bottles, in the early years, were marked with a label showing 10 2 4 . Uncle Don explained that was to indicate the times in your day to stop for a Dr. Pepper. Not a one of us kids disagreed with that idea. Then the cans came along, and the numbers on the label became a trademark of the past. The best indulgence was when it got cold out and Uncle Don would fill a saucepan with Dr. Pepper, lemon and orange slices, and heat the stuff until the bubbles just stopped popping. He’d pour us each a cup of the warm concoction: Hot Dr. Pepper… the supreme treat in my winters.
Because I’m a full-on caffeine addict, I have to monitor my soda intake. This has helped me to realize how much a part of everyday life soda has become. In Africa, they call their convenience stores a “Bottle Shop” for bottled sodas. They still use bottles there, beat up and etched by the past hundred years or so of use. You cannot leave the premises with your soda, but must drink it there and return the bottle when done. To do differently would be as criminal to them as us leaving a restaurant with our drinking glass. They do have cans, but they are the heavy gauge aluminum we used years ago, with a seam and all. Nobody is crushing those against their forehead.
The beverage market has boomed. Our stores have a very large array of liquids in the refrigerated section. And we are coming up with new ones every day. I’m thinking I’d like to try a ginger limeade, li-hing lemonade or lilikoi lemonade, and how about a sassafras tea? Our home refrigerator has containers of milk, juice, lemonade, and iced tea. The kids will open the door of the ‘fridge and ask, “Don’t we have anything to drink?” They mean sodas, of course. I answer, “Just water.” (I’ve hidden the diet Dr. Pepper.)