The Revenge of the Uncola

(Originally published 3/3/22)

Almost a half century ago, a sixty-four-ounce glass bottle of 7up, the uncola, left its mark. It was Christmas 1973, when soda pop came in glass, not plastic, bottles and were measured in ounces, not liters. Anyway, my brothers and I were playing a game of Skittle-Bowl, a Christmas gift that year, and about to partake in a little holiday bubbly.

Before opening the 7up bottle, if memory serves, it accidentally dropped to the floor. For every action there is a reaction. Retrieved and in one piece, the now agitated uncola erupted, ejecting its bottle cap with such force that it passed through a plastic hanging lamp shade above. It left a jagged hole in it on its way to the ceiling.

It was one of those what could have been moments in family history. Somebody could have lost an eye or suffered some other serious injury from the unleashed uncola. But no physical harm came to any human on the scene. And the hanging lamp endures to this day as a reminder of what once was.

I miss 1973. The family car was a used 1968 Buick Skylark purchased from a neighbor. The Mets were the National League champions. Local Sam’s Pizza served up a greasy delight back then when only whole pies were put in boxes, which were tied with string. Four oozing slices in a small paper bag was a sight to behold. My father called the place the “grease shop,” but the grease was—depending on the age of the pizza—a maker or breaker. There was good grease and bad grease.

There was a great bakery in the neighborhood, too: Shelvyn’s. Nowadays, standout standalone bakeries are hard to come by in these parts. Supermarkets with their own bakery departments and changing tastes and times have seen to that. Once upon a time, this otherworldly bakery on the main thoroughfare served up a cream donut the likes of which will never be sampled again. It was deep-fried, dense, and delicious. Not unlike the grease factor with pizza, the dense factor with donuts can either be a good thing or a bad thing.

I have not had 7up in quite a while. I wonder if it still tastes the way it did when Geoffrey Holder was the product’s TV pitchman and bottle caps passed through lampshades at warp speed. Probably not. For it was a simpler time when the Skylark, with my father behind the wheel, slid off an icy road into a ditch in the environs of Bangor, Pennsylvania, home of my maternal grandparents. A good Samaritan—a farmer in his tractor—got us back on course. That was also Christmastime 1973. A lot happened that week. And it is fair to say that then I was not mulling over what life would be almost fifty years later.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)