New Coke debut redux...1985 revisited.
Update: No, I'm not dead. Moving on....Wikipedia has ever-so-helpfully pointed out that today is that black day in history. Stock market, you say? Pshaw. I mean the debut of New Coke, of course. Read on...
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I was a junior in high school in 1985. (Yes, go ahead and do the math. And add one to it for good measure, my birthday's on the horizon...*L*...)
My sister (figure my age, subtract one) and I played four season's worth of sports, and at our high school, the immediate after-school sports activity of choice was a run to Schweitz's.
You and ten of your closest friends would pack into somebody's dad's station wagon and zoom out of the parking lot right behind the school buses. If you didn't have Dad's wagon, you'd best be friends with someone who did. Schweitz's was only 1/4 mile up the road, which was good because it was only 40 minutes from dismissal bell to first bat-crack at practice, regardless of sport or gender of participants. In that 40 minutes you had to gossip, pee, change clothes, eat, drink, pee again and be on the field [court/ diamond/track] or it was extra laps for you and all your teammates.
Schweitz's was a tiny gas station, the old-fashioned kind that still pumped the gas for you with the clickety-slow pumps. It had pig's feet on the counter, though I never in all my years saw that lid lifted, regardless of who was in the station or the age of the patron. I imagined that they were simply permenantly preserved there, in pink-tinted formeldahyde, and were not actually intended for human consumption at all. Old Don wouldn't tell you if you asked. He'd just wink and offer you a free one to try.
All of our parents knew Don Schweitz, as he was older than the hills and *they* had gone to his station after school back when the dusty old soda counter back in the corner was still operational. They used to get chocolate malts and penny candy, we bought Doritos and pop.
When provisions were gathered and paid for (usually someone or other on the team would get their money waved away; somehow the crusty old station owner knew whose parents could barely afford their spikes), you'd zoom back to the high school, gobbling in the car, and hope not to get a junk food cramp when Coach called for suicides. Now that I think more on it, it's a wonder we didn't throw up on a daily basis.
I remember the debut of New Coke well. It was softball season, and the rest of the country had had it for several days already, but this was SmallTownTM, USA, and it taken almost a week for New Coke to make it here. Schweitz's was pretty saavy about these things; old man Schweitz would keep abreast of what the kids were asking for, and if some new candy bar was being requested, it would generally show up in a week or two.
We knew the New Coke had hit town that morning, and had piled into our family sedans with renewed purpose. Even diehard Pepsi girls like me were ready to give it a whirl. I mean, hey, Bill Cosby liked it, right? What's not to love?
We all lined up with our fancy New Coke cans. The fact that Schweitz's was carrying it in cans should have been a signal that they doubted its longevity. They carried everything else in 16oz glass bottles, and we'd keep them till we had enough to make it worth the effort and sell 'em back to old man Schweitz for ten cents each. He scowled and shook his head at us when he saw our New Coke cans, grumbling that it tasted like bilgewater and he doubted it would last the summer. Too bad Vegas wasn't taking a line on New Coke, he'd have hit it big.
We didn't care- a coupla dozen baseball and softball players made it back to school, cans still sealed. We gathered in the gravel parking lot, and I remember thinking that practice would be a long one; the lot and the fields were muddy because it had rained that morning, and we'd have work to do on the diamonds before we could even play.
Ceremoniously we all popped our can tabs together, and that, folks was the most fizz we got outta that experience. I think there was one guy out of all of us who liked it, and the rest scowled much like old man Schweitz and dumped the rest of ours out on the ground, not even bothering to finish them.
We washed our Fritos and KitKats down that day with metallic fountain-water, grumbling all the while. If I remember my urban folk history, New Coke didn't last the summer till they pulled it nationwide.
Old man Schweitz had ditched it long before that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was a junior in high school in 1985. (Yes, go ahead and do the math. And add one to it for good measure, my birthday's on the horizon...*L*...)
My sister (figure my age, subtract one) and I played four season's worth of sports, and at our high school, the immediate after-school sports activity of choice was a run to Schweitz's.
You and ten of your closest friends would pack into somebody's dad's station wagon and zoom out of the parking lot right behind the school buses. If you didn't have Dad's wagon, you'd best be friends with someone who did. Schweitz's was only 1/4 mile up the road, which was good because it was only 40 minutes from dismissal bell to first bat-crack at practice, regardless of sport or gender of participants. In that 40 minutes you had to gossip, pee, change clothes, eat, drink, pee again and be on the field [court/ diamond/track] or it was extra laps for you and all your teammates.
Schweitz's was a tiny gas station, the old-fashioned kind that still pumped the gas for you with the clickety-slow pumps. It had pig's feet on the counter, though I never in all my years saw that lid lifted, regardless of who was in the station or the age of the patron. I imagined that they were simply permenantly preserved there, in pink-tinted formeldahyde, and were not actually intended for human consumption at all. Old Don wouldn't tell you if you asked. He'd just wink and offer you a free one to try.
All of our parents knew Don Schweitz, as he was older than the hills and *they* had gone to his station after school back when the dusty old soda counter back in the corner was still operational. They used to get chocolate malts and penny candy, we bought Doritos and pop.
When provisions were gathered and paid for (usually someone or other on the team would get their money waved away; somehow the crusty old station owner knew whose parents could barely afford their spikes), you'd zoom back to the high school, gobbling in the car, and hope not to get a junk food cramp when Coach called for suicides. Now that I think more on it, it's a wonder we didn't throw up on a daily basis.
I remember the debut of New Coke well. It was softball season, and the rest of the country had had it for several days already, but this was SmallTownTM, USA, and it taken almost a week for New Coke to make it here. Schweitz's was pretty saavy about these things; old man Schweitz would keep abreast of what the kids were asking for, and if some new candy bar was being requested, it would generally show up in a week or two.
We knew the New Coke had hit town that morning, and had piled into our family sedans with renewed purpose. Even diehard Pepsi girls like me were ready to give it a whirl. I mean, hey, Bill Cosby liked it, right? What's not to love?
We all lined up with our fancy New Coke cans. The fact that Schweitz's was carrying it in cans should have been a signal that they doubted its longevity. They carried everything else in 16oz glass bottles, and we'd keep them till we had enough to make it worth the effort and sell 'em back to old man Schweitz for ten cents each. He scowled and shook his head at us when he saw our New Coke cans, grumbling that it tasted like bilgewater and he doubted it would last the summer. Too bad Vegas wasn't taking a line on New Coke, he'd have hit it big.
We didn't care- a coupla dozen baseball and softball players made it back to school, cans still sealed. We gathered in the gravel parking lot, and I remember thinking that practice would be a long one; the lot and the fields were muddy because it had rained that morning, and we'd have work to do on the diamonds before we could even play.
Ceremoniously we all popped our can tabs together, and that, folks was the most fizz we got outta that experience. I think there was one guy out of all of us who liked it, and the rest scowled much like old man Schweitz and dumped the rest of ours out on the ground, not even bothering to finish them.
We washed our Fritos and KitKats down that day with metallic fountain-water, grumbling all the while. If I remember my urban folk history, New Coke didn't last the summer till they pulled it nationwide.
Old man Schweitz had ditched it long before that.