Well, dear readers, this month is flying by, like a gazelle drinking a Dr. Brown’s Diet Cream Soda (the gazelle is trying to lose a few pounds). Because I often like to copy the gazelle, who is very with it and on top of the latest and the greatest, I, too, had a Dr. Brown’s Diet Cream Soda and it was great. I hadn’t had one in years and the last time I had one it was from a can – this one was from a bottle and I forget how good soda pop is when it’s from a bottle. When exactly did soda pop in cans begin? As a wee sprig of a twig of a tad of a lad of a youth, I always had the soda pop in bottles. That’s all there was and you even got money back when you’d return the bottles. I wrote all about that time in Benjamin Kritzer – going to Leo’s Delicatessen in the mornings and getting my bottle of Coke or Ginger Ale or Grape soda or Orange soda or Dr. Pepper and drinking it all down, accompanied by a great pickle from the pickle barrel. I collected the bottle caps, too. I am glad they still sell some soda pop in actual glass bottles rather than the plastic bottles and the cans. Okay. Apparently canned soda pop began somewhere around 1938 with some one-off brand. Pepsi tried it in 1948, hoping the novel idea would give Coke a run for its money. It didn’t – it was a dismal failure. Then there were some small brand canned soda around 1953 with cone tops. Then more companies began using cans in 1955 but one didn’t see them very often. Coke didn’t join the game until the very end of 1959. That all sounds about right to me, because I definitely remember cans begin around as the decade changed. I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you get such useful information about canned soda pop on a Wednesday in August? Nowhere, that’s where. Did you know that the term soda pop was coined in 1861? Did you know that the first diet drink was sold in 1952, called the No-Cal Beverage? The first diet cola was sold in 1959. Did you know that in 1929 the Howdy Company introduced a new soda pop called Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Sodas – someone at some point wisely made the name a little simpler: 7-Up. Did you know that 1965 was the first year canned soda pop was sold from a vending machine. I’m telling you, if you want to know about soda pop this is the place to be. Of course, it might also be nice if I actually wrote some notes to go along with our history lesson of soda pop.
But first, did you know that Dr. Pepper was invented one year before Coca-Cola? Yesterday was a very busy day for the likes of me. I got up around nine-thirty after nine hours of sleep. I had quite a few e-mails to answer, including a nice one from Mr. Harold Prince. I then got all the sheet music for our Kritzerland anniversary show. After that, I went to Staples to get some charts Xeroxed, then had a sandwich and no fries, then picked up a package, and then came home. I spent a few hours getting the singers their music and mp3s. The helper came and got invoices – she’s got a doozy of a day today – shipping out will be the Baja Marimbas and the Junior High School combo CD and Blu-ray orders (the single Blu-ray orders already shipped), Dear Brigitte, and shockingly, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, which has come in six weeks ahead of schedule and only two days after we announced it. It’s almost sold out now, with less than 100 copies left. Those could go in a day or a week.
Then I went to Gelson’s and got some small snacks for the evening, since I’d only had a small turkey sandwich. I also bought about twenty of this little cranberry almond nougat bar I’m quite obsessed with. I’ve been eating them for about three weeks now and I love them large. They’re only 130 calories each and they’re quite yummilicious. Then I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched the final episode of the final season (three) of Cracker, and it was every bit as good as the last four I watched – in other words, great television. I have two more to watch – the first was done a year after season three wrapped, and the last was done almost a decade later. But these last two don’t feature most of the regulars, so we’ll see how good they are.
After that, I was kind of antsy, so I played on the Internet, drank a bottle of Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda, had a cranberry almond nougat bar and did some work. Did you know that in 1876 Root Beer was produced for mass public consumption? Did you know that in 1923 the six-pack carton of soda pop, called Hom-Paks, was invented? We’re talkin’ about soda pop, baby. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really must get a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, I’m having breakfast with the mother and daughter I was supposed to have dinner with last night. They have a one o’clock flight to catch so I’m sure we’ll meet around ten. Then I’ll do errands and whatnot, we will ship a LOT of CDs, I will hopefully pick up a package that contains a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Jaws, I shall do an event page on Facebook for our Kritzerland anniversary show, and then I shall relax and watch Jaws.
Tomorrow and Friday are some meetings, some meals, some writing liner notes, and then I get ready for my trip to the city that never sleeps. I booked my ride to the airport on Sunday morning and for my return on Wednesday afternoon.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have breakfast, do errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up a package, do an event page, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, here’s my question: What were your favorite soda pops when you were growing up? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall ponder such important facts as in 1906 Orange Crush was invented and preparing Orange Crush was perfected in Los Angeles, in 1904 Canada Dry Ginger Ale was invented in – wait for it – Canada and was first shipped to the United States (New York to be exact) in 1919, but did you know that the oldest surviving ginger ale sold in the United States is Vernors Ginger Ale, first sold in 1866?