C Is For Soda Pop

We’re up to C already???!!! All right! This ought to be a piece of cake!

No, today’s topic is not cake. However, we will be discussing another important source of nutrients for good health — soda pop! What? Doesn’t begin with C? OK. How about cola?

If you were like me when you were a kid, you probably had your share of candy, pop, chips, and all sorts of other junk food. It’s amazing that I made it through childhood considering all the garbage I ate. At the very least you’d think my teeth would be rotted to hell. In fact, they’re only rotted to heck.

I would love to have some idea of the quantity of this sugary, empty-caloried “food” I’ve eaten — either in number of items or total poundage. It might even surpass the quantity of beer I’ve consumed as an adult (actually, I really doubt that).

Jawbreakers, pixy stix, chocolate bars, bubble gum, candy necklaces, licorice pipes, goo goo bars (that sounds like a Chinese food menu item), gummi worms (ewww), jelly beans, jujubes, marshmallow cones, suckers, Popeye brand candy cigarettes, Cracker Jacks, Pop Rocks, taffy, toffee, Coffee Crisp, and waxed candies (which included these gigantic nasty looking thumbs that were filled with colored liquid sugar); if it was available at the corner store in the ‘60s, then I’ve probably had it.

Here’s a good website that will make your teeth hurt by just visiting it.

Today I pretty well eschew (which means “don't chew”) all candy and sweets. I do partake in a can of cola every now and then. But I’m more likely to drink diet pop in order to make more caloric room for beer.

Coca-Cola — the pause that refreshes; the drink that will remove rust from the bumper of your old Ford; the soda that will dissolve a juicy t-bone steak; the beverage that when taken with aspirin will make you higher than a Tibetan monk; the pop with cocaine, the cola that will eat a hole right through your stomach!

I come from a family of die-hard Coke fans. Anyone found drinking a Pepsi in our house would have been as welcome as Sarah Palin at a Mensa meeting. My youngest brother in particular was a real Cocaholic. I swear he existed on nothing but that cola for three years. So we felt it was our duty as Coke lovers to separate cola fact from cola fiction.

It was in the early ‘70s when I had already tried smoking banana peel shavings to no effect. Thus, I was already a veteran of cheap-high experimentation and was eager to try the Coke and aspirin. My best friend watched with trepidation (he was sure this was going to turn me into a drooling maniac). But after a couple of hours, the only noticeable effects were a lessening of a mild headache I’d had that day, and some thirst relief.

My father was the one to dispel the drink’s meat-dissolving myth. He put a strip of bacon in a bottle of Coke and re-capped it. After several days, the bacon looked remarkably healthy. The Coke however had lost all its color and fizz (presumably, the bacon had somehow absorbed the coloring and effervescence from the soda). The cola was ruined and went promptly down the drain. And we can’t be blamed for throwing away the strip of bacon as well.

Speaking of my father, he used to sing us this strange little song from his youth. Due to the fact that this is not an adults-only blog, and the song has foul language, I have to use asterisks  —  a LOT of asterisks. You’re just going to have to use your dirtiest imagination to figure out all the lyrics:

Coca-Cola pig’s *******-a
Someone **** on my Victrola
****, ****, **********, ****
Forty *******s tied in a knot.

The cocaine rumor is false, although an original formula actually had a few milligrams of cocaine per glass. I wonder if anyone tried to snort Coca-Cola back then. Youch! Most of us know how much it can hurt when you just get one of those carbonated beverage burps that goes right up the nose!

As far as the hole in the stomach myth goes, I can tell you that my tummy is still intact. I don’t know how many times I’ve had a lunch of fried pepperonis washed down with a can of Coke and suffered no ill effects. Of course, I did this too as a relatively young man. I wouldn’t try it now without a family-sized bottle of industrial-strength Tums nearby.

I invite you to try the bumper-rust removal test yourself. Buy a large bottle of Coke, go to a junkyard, find an old 1970 Ford Maverick (maybe my old 1970 Ford Maverick), and get busy.

But be careful! Wear rubber gloves. That Coca-Cola is murder on human skin.