donbosco
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In the back of my Deddy’s hardware store stood on old refrigerator. It was full of a variety of ‘drinks’ that his patrons would choose from. “Drinks.” That’s what we called them in #DeepChatham, not sodas or pop, at least not in #BonleeHardware. When I was quite young there were actually a few of the older men that even used the term ‘dope’ in reference to days when such bottled beverages were supposed to be laced with cocaine or other pharmaceutical derivatives. Our fridge offered YooHoos, Fanta Grape and Orange, and Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. The last two, the colas, were in pretty stiff competition with one another for #1.
I admit that as a boy that I enjoyed the less popular sweet and syrupy Grape Fanta. I’ve grown up and the Orange is my favorite now. There were no cans in those days and the bottles were glass and returnable. You needed a sturdy old school opener. More than one time I walked the ditch around #Bonlee with a feed sack picking up bottles to sell them back to Deddy for the five cent deposit. I’m not sure when that exchange ended though I do remember from my days tending bar that the last hold-out for returnable bottles was Pabst Blue Ribbon in the late 1990s. Maybe there are some returnables in North Carolina now though I am unaware of them.
The patrons of #BonleeHardware were mainly local farmers and repairmen. Deddy had his stock arranged in an interesting way and one that not every customer figured out. There was a bit of chaos to the order I admit but in general an “Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral” inventorying was the rule. Of course, that was all by Deddy’s definition. The store was the kind of place where the customer was ‘waited on’ though many long-time regulars knew a good bit about where they could find things. Just the same, ‘tending’ to them was part of the job. As a young boy I was shooed away by some of the old men but by high school I knew as well as anyone save Deddy where the stock was kept. A lot of problem-solving went on on that well-oiled board floor.
Plumbing and ‘watering’ set-ups and wiring tricks were passed along side-by-side livestock market information and weather prognostications. Most everyone grew some broilers (chickens) and had cows and pigs too. Advice on doctoring animals was also a pretty hot topic and the surrender was always, “Well, you’re going to have to call Floyd Smith on that one I reckon.” Mr. Smith was a ‘real’ cowboy from down in #DeeperChatham. They said he was a might rough and tough and knew all about cows and horses. How this was so was never clear, just accepted wisdom. The worst plumbing snafus and conundrums often ended up in the column of Shug Phillips. Shug was a genius with water and it was fairly evident that he was no stranger to the properties of multiple other liquids, potent potables included. Sometimes I was ‘loaned out’ to Shug and those junkets were always enlightening on several levels to say the least.
All wasn’t business in Bonlee Hardware though. Most of those traders parked their trucks behind the place, came in through the back door, and would grab a ‘drink’ as they made their way up front. Once there, they’d stand around, in the winter under the ceiling-hung stove, in the summer by the fan, and the talking would commence. While the aforementioned advice and counsel was offered up there was a goodly amount of tall-tale telling (my Momma flat-out called it Lyin’) while downing their drink and some salted peanuts or some 4-corner Nabs.
Pepsi was the favorite with the little Co-Colas a close second. Deddy always said the more frugal among that crowd went with Pepsi because you got an ounce and a half more for your dime. It did seem like he was right about that. There was wisdom passed around, everyone knew how their neighbor voted so as I recall there wasn’t really much politics talked. My Deddy made no secret of his affiliation as a democrat and a Roosevelt, New Deal one at that. Today he’d be called a Liberal - or something deemed even worse by modern MAGAs. I think there was a good deal of recollection of the hardships of the Great Depression still alive in those days as well as the struggle to defeat fascism that was World War II among the men and women of #BonleeHardware. No doubt those collective experiences reminded those folks of the power of unity over division and discord.
#OTD in 1898 “Brad’s Drink” became Pepsi-Cola “Brad’s Drink,” now Pepsi-Cola, Stirred Up (in) New Bern
