Week 27: #52 Ancestors – Free
By Eilene Lyon
It’s been a while since we heard from my Grandpa Smitty. The childhood treats he recalls weren’t exactly “free,” but they brought to mind some of his carefree younger days when the taste of a soda pop took you to another realm.
Excerpt from “The Changing Times”
by Laurence M. Smith
I tell you now about some things we had when I was growing up that you could not buy now for any price. We had “Strawberry Soda Pop.”
When you took the cap off a bottle of strawberry pop it fizzed like a crackling fire. You take a swig of this “pop” and you knew you had just reached paradise. Part of the carbonation would back-fire and tickle your nose.
My life ambition was to make enough money so that I could have strawberry pop anytime I wanted it. The trouble with that idea was that when I could afford it, somebody discovered that the way they made strawberry pop was not healthy and they quit making it that way.
Another thing we had was a strawberry ice cream soda. Behind the counter of the ice cream parlor was two spigots with a six-inch wooden handle sticking up. One spigot ran out ice water and the other spigot squirted out carbonation.
To make a heavenly ice cream soda you first put in a scoop of rich creamy ice cream. Now a squirt or two of strawberry syrup. Now, from one spigot run ice water, and from the other, the high pressure carbonation mixes the syrup and the ice cream into a frothy fluid mixture that is delicious beyond description. The present day kids have never tasted anything like it.
We also had such delectably sinful drinks as “Green River” and “Cherry Coke.” When you drank these your stomach said Oh, Wow! The cokes were 5¢ the ice cream sodas were 10¢.
Feature image: Soda jerk with ice cream soda (Wikimedia Commons)
Myricopia 
Yum, yum, yum! Oh for the good old days of not worrying about what you’re eating and drinking! I love the girls holding up their dolls in the photo!
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I liked seeing all those dolls, too. It’s a cute photo, though unfortunately damaged. I used to love root beer floats as a kid.
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I used to work at Baskin-Robbins, back in the day when no one knew what the word “cholesterol” meant!
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That would have been disastrous for me – I love ice cream!
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Root beer floats were my soda fountain treat of choice as well.
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I think we only ever got the homemade variety.
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We got the homemade variety more often than the soda fountain.
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Just delightful!
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He did make it sound pretty special!
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I wonder what the problem was with the making of the strawberry pop.
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Probably some drug or poison, like cocaine in Coca Cola.
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That would be consistent with past history.
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I was recently reading how even plain carbonated water softens your tooth enamel, so you shouldn’t brush your teeth for at least an hour after drinking any carbonated beverage.
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It sounds as though some chemical must be involved in the carbination process.
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Carbon is the chemical. Mix with water and you make carbonic acid. It’s the reason our oceans are acidifying and killing coral reefs.
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Ah, that makes perfect sense, thanks!
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I should have said “carbon dioxide”, just for clarification.
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Thank you for the clarification. 🙂
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I can just imagine Grandpa Smitty sharing this story with his grandkids sitting at his feet! Made me think of root beer floats. Larry would always order them at A&W. Do you have A&W in the States?
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Yes, we have A & W. They are few and far between, I think, though there is one about 30 miles from my home.
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I get the joy in this account, but I know I wouldn’t like any of it! Maybe I’m weird …
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You don’t have a sweet tooth? I don’t drink sodas and haven’t really since I was a kid. I sometimes add seltzer to a bit of fruit juice, but that’s it. Ice cream, though, is still a weakness!
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Not really! Apart from chocolate, the darker the better.
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You’re a woman of refined taste.😊
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But of course!
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My mom taught me how to make ice cream soda with a scoop of any ice cream then filling the glass with CocaCola; she said it was the way GIs had them in Occupied Japan in the late 1940s.
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Did you ever make it with something other than vanilla?
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Yeah, pistachio, black cherry, yum!
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I can see those blending well. Too sweet even for me, though!
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I have not had one since I was a kid, probably too sweet for me now, as well, hehe.
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I’ll take the ice cream and leave the soda out of it.🙂
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My father once worked as a “soda jerk.” I always thought that was the silliest name for any job!
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I suppose it comes from “jerking” the spigots. Jerk probably wasn’t a pejorative term at the time. My gr-gr-uncle had a job “jerking lightning” aka telegraph operator.
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Interesting. I should look up the etymology of jerk and see when it became an insult.
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Let me know what you find!
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Here’s one take on it. It seems jerk as an insult came about in 1935 whereas soda jerk goes back to the 1880s! https://www.etymonline.com/word/jerk
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My goodness! What a delightful writer he was! He’s so descriptive I want to hop in a time machine and go order a delectable treat.
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For us kids growing up in NY, it was egg creams. There was a soda shop in Yonkers when I was knee high to a grasshopper and they made heaven in a glass. Carbonated walk, chocolate syrup and milk . . . yum.
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Where does the egg come in?
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I was told it was based on a Yiddish term for sweet, but I don’t know for certain.
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Another mystery to solve, like when did “jerk” become an insult. (Amy is working on that one.)
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Hmmmm, I never thought about it but yeah.
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If you check her comment thread, she left a link to edify us.
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I remember drinking “red pop” when I was a kid – but don’t think it was strawberry specifically? Was it labelled a “cream soda’? There was a commercial advertising it on tv too, where the clerk recites a whole bunch of flavors and the kid always chooses red pop. You could add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and make it a float. I believe it was taken off the market due to the red dye, and for awhile they made a colorless version with the same taste.
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Maybe the dye was the unhealthy issue Smitty refers to. I remember some food dyes being discontinued when I was much younger – maybe in the 70s. I remember orange and grape Fanta or Nehi sodas, but don’t recall strawberry. I vaguely recall some red pop, but that’s about it.
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I think it might have been Faygo brand….I’ll have to google. It was good stuff!
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Not familiar with that one…
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Wow — he had such a way with words, he probably could have talked me into those drinks and I don’t even like pop!
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Hi Christi! Nice to see you here. He did write some fun bits. I’m so glad he took the time to put some of his memories in writing.
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This was a fun story Eilene. Here in the Detroit area, we are famous for inventing the Boston Cooler (by Fred Sanders of Sanders candy fame) … it is made with a very fizzy pop called “Vernors” and you plop a scoop of vanilla ice cream into it. Vernors had a huge factory around the corner where I finished up my last two years of school. People who move from Michigan often order it online as they miss that fizzy, gingery taste. I worked in a diner during my college years and sometimes our regular customers would come in and ask to buy or just ask for a few inches of coke syrup. Pure coke syrup is good for settling the stomach and something young kids could tolerate, unlike harsh medicine with possible side effects. To accommodate them, we’d unhook the carbonation line and extract some coke syrup, then put the line back again to serve Coke. I remember Cherry Coke that we made with a spoonful of cherry syrup in the glass and then just pushed the Coke spigot. We made Cherry Sprites too. I’d never had those drinks before working there. My parents didn’t allow me to drink pop to keep me from getting cavities. It worked as I never have been a pop/soda drinker.
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I remember Vernor’s from my time in Ohio. An ex introduced me to it. I always did like ginger ale. I recall from my bartending days that we would add grenadine syrup (whatever that is) to Coke or Sprite to make a Roy Rogers or Shirley Temple drink for kids. With a maraschino cherry on top, of course.
You’re fortunate of you managed to avoid cavities. I have always had lots of them and now a mouth full of crowns. Still get them, thanks to my sweet tooth.
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Vernor’s is an acquired taste – some people may not like that strong and fizzy taste. When I lived in Canada it was Bitter Lemon that people drank or Canada Dry. I did get a few cavities despite pop and candy being off limits. Not sure how, though my grandmother would sneak hard candy to me when we visited.
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That Strawberry Soda Pop sounds right up my street. I can just imagine it!
I remember ice cream sodas, we used to have them as vanilla ice cream and coke!
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Now, would it be the strawberry flavor, the fizzy soda, or the way it turns your mouth bright red that appeals the most?
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I’m not the biggest ice cream soda fan (I prefer a root beer float – I find most people don’t put enough syrup in the soda for my taste), but that mouthwatering description has me craving a strawberry soda!
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Grandpa should have gone into advertising! I enjoyed root beer floats, too. But I’m more likely to go for a Colorado Bulldog, which is a White Russian with Coke added. (Though I prefer a White or Black Russian – soda really isn’t my thing.)
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