Tag: pop

Grandpa’s wall of 8-packs… and other warmly remembered childhood oddities

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

Doing ’80s research is dangerous for me. Any time frame earlier is “history,” and I love it… but it’s hard to be clinical when every turned page of a 70s or 80s Courier-Express or Buffalo Evening News is dripping with images and ideas that leave me drowning in nostalgia.

I could write a short book about when the bottom shelf of the pop aisle at every Buffalo grocery store was filled with Coke, Pepsi, and RC Cola in tall, thin glass bottles.

Pop tasted so much better in those 16oz glass bottles. Those eight packs were always on sale, and even when they weren’t, it was the cheapest way to buy the name brand.

That’s why Gramps loved ’em.

Grandma Cichon lived a few doors from Seneca Street in a worn out, but grand old house. When you walked in the front door and looked straight ahead, you looked through the front hall, then a more narrow hallway, and then right into the kitchen.

If Grandma wasn’t at the stove cooking, she was the first thing you’d see when that door swung open, sitting at the head of the table, with a cup of coffee in a gold butterfly mug and Kool 100 burning in the over-full ashtray.

When you creaked open that big door and looked slightly to the right, if Gramps wasn’t working (which was a lot– he still had three jobs when I was little), he was sitting in that comfy chair right just on the other side of the beautiful leaded glass doors which lead into the parlor.

Grandma generally would see us first, and start to say hello, before Gramps– who was much closer– would take his eyes off of Lawrence Welk or Bugs Bunny to intercept us for a minute.

“Ha’oh dere, son,” Gramps would say in a pretty thick standard Buffalo Polish accent. I had no idea there was anything to notice about that. Isn’t that how everyone’s Grandpa talked?

“Can I get you a glass of pop or a sandwich?” Gramps would ask, and immediately piss off my ol’man.

Royal Crown: the definitive “big name” cola of Polonia.

“Jesus Christ, Dad, it’s ten o’clock in the mornin’,” Dad would say, walking toward Grandma in the kitchen.

Ignoring my ol’man completely, Gramps would give an inventory.

“Well help yourself. In the ice box we got two kinds of baloney… Polish loaf… olive loaf… pimento loaf… ham…”

The sound of his voice would trail off as we walked through the narrow hallway on the way to the kitchen.

Now I wouldn’t think anything of this hallway until twenty years later, when the girlfriend-who-became-my-wife asked me about it after visiting Gramps.

In the same way I never thought anything about my grandpa’s Polish accent, I never thought anything about his hallway filled with pop.

When I say filled, I mean the entire length of the ten-foot long walkway had pop pushed up against the wall, stacked two or three deep and two, three, or four high in some places.

It was mystical and mystifying. Gramps’ pop display was far more impressive than what you’d have seen at Quality Food Mart, half a block away at Seneca and Duerstein.

There were 2-liter and 3-liter bottles; flat, mixed-flavored cases of grocery-store brand cans; some times a wooden case or two from Visniak, but more than anything else, 8-pack after 8-pack of glass bottles.

Now Gramps had ten kids, but there weren’t ten kids living there at the time. And even for ten kids– hundreds of servings of soda pop lined up waist high, the first thing you see when you walk into the house… well, it was one of many things that made Gramps a true Buffalo original.

I’m sure there was something about taking advantage of a good sale… or getting one over on a cashier with an expired coupon… or (put a star next to this one) getting under my grandmother’s skin by buying things she’d say they didn’t need…

But Gramps really didn’t drink. He wouldn’t want a beer, but would relax with a coffee or a pop.

He also really wanted to share his pop, and make sure you knew it was OK to take it. He wasn’t just being polite in offering it. That wall was there to prove, “I got plenty! Go ahead and take one!”

You could expect to refuse a pop at least three or four times while visiting with Gramps, and then one more on the way out.

“Sure you don’t want a pop, son? Why don’t you take some home? I’ll get you a bag.”

Detroit’s Vernors still gives Buffalo va-va-voom

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

Vernors Ginger Ale is an iconic Detroit staple, but for at least a century, Buffalo has been one of the biggest secondary markets of the unique pop brand.

In the mid-1950s, this West Side store advertised Iroquois Beer, Rich’s Ice Cream and Vernors Ginger Ale among other goods.

Not everyone is a fan of the sweet, peppery, spicy, “deliciously different” Vernors – but if you are, it’s one of those tastes that makes this place home.

For decades, Buffalo got its fix of Motor City pop via Great Lakes steam power. Crates of Vernors made their way across Lake Erie on the same ships, like the “City of Buffalo” of the D&C line, that once carried passengers to all the major Great Lakes ports.

A Great Lakes freighter delivers Vernors to Buffalo.

In 1926, the James Vernor Company bought the former Pierce-Arrow showroom at 752-758 Main St., and set up a bottling plant and retail shop after “the success attained by Vernors Ginger Ale in Buffalo forced the company to seek larger and permanent headquarters” in Western New York.

The soft drink was popular in bottles and at soda fountains and drink counters. “The Boston Cooler” was a popular drug store treat, mixing Vernors and vanilla ice cream. It was one of the featured specials in the early days of Anderson’s, and was a big hit at Kenmore’s Henel Bros. Dairy as well.

One less-popular recipe that Vernors printed in newspapers encouraged parents to mix their children’s milk with Vernors for “a drink children find irresistible,” touting it as a “healthful, rich beverage with a stimulating zest and sparkle.”

1964.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, Vernors ads could be heard on WKBW Radio, with Danny Neaverth and other KB stars reminding baby boomer teens that “Vernors has va-va-voom,” contributing to the beverage’s ongoing popularity here.

The company’s retail store stood in the beautiful marble and terra cotta Vernor building for 25 years before being sold in 1951. The bottling rights were franchised a few years later, bought up by the same company that produced Squirt and Hires.

The Vernor Building was sold several times and fell into disrepair. It was torn down in 2007, in what Buffalo City Court Judge Henry Nowak called “a classic case of demolition by neglect.”

1965.

Detroit Pharmacist James Vernor created the beverage in 1866. His family sold the business 100 years later in 1966. Today, the brand is owned by Dr. Pepper.

Gramps: Junk Food Connoisseur

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Buffalo, NY – I miss visits with Gramps… I’d call him ahead of time to make sure he didn’t have an appointment at the VA, and to ask if he wanted a hot dog (with sweet relish and slivered onions) or a couple of TimBits.

“A lil’bit of both would be good,” he’d say, cracking himself up with that laugh that makes me cry to think about.

As posted on Facebook, October 14, 2013: A nice hour and a half with Gramps today. He says hi to everyone. Facebook would accuse me of spam if I tagged everyone he said hi to... So "ha'lo, dere" from 87 year old gramps.
As posted on Facebook, October 14, 2013: “A nice hour and a half with Gramps today. He says hi to everyone. Facebook would accuse me of spam if I tagged everyone he said hi to… So “ha’lo, dere” from 87 year old Gramps.”

Like so many people of his generation, he grew up during The Depression without much to eat. He loved eating food and talking about food and sharing food.

In his years at the nursing home, our conversations usually involved what he had for lunch, breakfast, and maybe dinner the night before. He was always offering you the bag of chips that were on his nightstand or a piece of candy.

Visiting his house, you could barely get in the door before he’d read you the whole menu.

“Hallo dere son!” he’d yell out as you walked in, without pause adding, “Can I get you a sandwich? How bout a cold pop? You could make us a cup of coffee?”

I’d usually put on the kettle for a two cups of instant coffee for us, which he always seemed to enjoy– if not the drink, then the drinking it together.

There was always coffee, and there was always pop. Lots of pop. Too much pop. The first time she went to Grandpa Cichon’s house, Monica asked why there was so much pop. It’s funny the things you grow up with and don’t notice until someone points them out. The hall leading to the kitchen always had dozens of cans or bottles of pop stacked high. Like a store display. As one of ten with ten kids, Gramps always bought everything in bulk when it was on sale—whether it was needed or not.

While there was no greater connoisseur of junk food than Gramps, his junk food muscles were wearing out at the end of his life. He couldn’t eat more than 2 or 3 Timbits after lunch, and while he’d finish a hot dog, you could tell he was struggling to finish.

“My eyes are bigger that my stomach,” he said one time, “even though I’m blind.” Again with the laugh. All the junk food lead to diabetes which robbed Gramps of his sight for his last few years.

The loneliness he felt at the end of his life was painful to all of us. He was the last of ten kids still alive, nearly all his friends had died. Even a couple of his kids, my dad included, had passed away.  But Gramps kept plugging. His goal was to live longer than anyone else in his family. His mom lived to 87, his sister Mary to 89. He wanted to be 90.

Gramps finished in second place. He died peacefully a couple weeks after his 88th birthday. While he might have been disappointed to learn he didn’t make 90, I know he would have been satisfied with his final moments.

Because he was blind, an aide would help him eat lunch. Halfway through, she noticed he hadn’t moved in a while—and he was gone. Gramps died eating lunch, which makes me smile every time I think of it.

What also makes me smile is that first conversation in heaven with my dad.

“I just had a delicious lunch, son. I wish I could have finished it.”

Buffalo’s (probably forgotten) pop brands of the ’80s

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

It’s impossible to think of pop in the 1980s without thinking of the Cola Wars.

You might remember the Cola Wars as Coke vs. Pepsi, but 30 years ago this week; another cola took space in The News to remind you they were just as good.

RC Cola, the ad says, beat out New Coke and Pepsi in blind taste tests, “turning the cola world upside down.” RC Cola remained popular in Buffalo, and was even the soft drink served in Mighty Taco.

This week at Bells, yet another national brand cola was on sale: Like Cola was 7-Up’s entry in the cola market.

At Super Duper, the most economical way to enjoy a cola was with a Red & White big three-liter bottle. Super Duper also had Diet Faygo selections on sale.

 

Pop wasn’t all about the cola, though. In 1984, Pepsi replaced its lemon-lime flavored Teem with Slice. In 2000, the Slice brand name was replaced by Sierra Mist.

Buffalo’s off-brand pop of the ’80s

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Pepsi was “the choice of the new generation,” and Coke was busy reformulating “New Coke” and then bringing back “Coke Classic.”

The cola wars were fierce, and all children of the ’80s certainly had picked a side — even if they didn’t always get to drink Coke or Pepsi.

Thrifty Buffalonians have always enjoyed off-brands of almost anything. Supermarkets and department stores like Tops, Bells, Super Duper, Twin Fair and Two Guys, among others, offered store-brand soda pop, but brands like Faygo and the RC Cola family of beverages were considered a slight step above — even if they weren’t in the trenches of the cola wars.