THAT BELOVED...... PEPSI COLA!

by Art Snipes, CHS class of '51

Mil, your Coca Cola story brought back memories of

our boyhood in Clovis...however, mine are about

PEPSI COLA!

There was at our house---once a week---a day when

Mother did the ironing. We had no air conditioning

in those days and it got very hot in the house.

Mother seldom had pocket change so she would

sometimes find coins that had fallen into the couch.

She would say to us boys (me and my brother, 

Bobby Joe) "Why don't you boys go to the store

and get us a cold Pepsi?" (In those days a Pepsi

Cola was a better buy than a Coca Cola because

it was "twelve full ounces--that's a lot!")

So we would head out to Murphy's Grocery---a

block north of our house. Sometimes we had

enough money to also buy a bag of Planter's 

Salted Peanuts!

Peanuts and Pepsis---ah, nothing better--

on a hot summer day!

This is a Tribute to my MOM, Melba Snipes.

*************************

MIL'S REPLY: During our boyhood years in

Clovis, (1940--49) ART and BOBBY JOE 

lived exactly one block east of us--we on Reid

Street...and they on Thornton.

It was during the momentous WWII times.

How oft have I seen his hard-working mother,

Melba, laboring in her kitchen...many times

cooking or canning in her pressure cooker.

We little barefoot boys, in the summers, and 

sometimes a little bored, would  hang around

her kitchen, hoping for some Koolade or maybe 

a cookie. 

She was pleasant and talked to us about things.

One day she said something I have never

forgotten...and here it is, almost verbatim---

"One of these days, you boys will be twenty-

one---and all grown up."

Time was going so slowly in our lives---

a summer was like an eternity...and I thought---

"it's impossible."

**************

There was a jingle, advertising Pepsi Cola,

which must have played on KICA  Radio a

thousand times:

"Pepsi Cola hits the spot

Twelve full ounces, that's a lot

Twice as much for a nickel too

Pepsi Cola is the drink for you...

Nickel, nickel, nickel 

Rubi-dah-daht-tah....

Nickel, nickel, nickel..." fades...out...

********************

BY ART and MIL

7/27/16