3-V Cola

Any you ol' geezers remember 3-V Cola, huhhhhhh?? This was my favorite sody pop when I was a lil' peeshwank growin' up on the farm, tru dat. Why? Because it was bottled in these cool bigassed 16 oz. bottles, and all the other colas ( Coke, RC, Pepsi ) was still just being bottled in 12 oz bottles, dat's why. I grew up on a farm & we lived smack dab between 2 little towns called Onaga (where I went to school) and Havensville (where my family was from ~ they founded the town, actually ~ owned the bank, grain elevator, brought in the railroad, etc. ) So I had a couple sources where I could score a big cold bottle of 3-V iffin I had fifteen cents.

In Onaga, I had to walk from the school, or my Grandpa's house, all the way down to the edge of town to Kilowatt's Sinclair gas station. Old Kilowatt was a creepy ol' geezer & was scary as hell to a lil' kid ... but worth the risk going down there for a 3-V ... and iffin I had a whole quarter, I could get me a 3-V AND a Cherry Mash candy bar!! In Havensville, the source for 3-V was Harley Davis' drug store ~ another creepy ol' geezer that was mean to lil' kids ... but he had a great selection of penny candies and had a neat old metal cooler that he kept his sody pop cold in ~ not refridgerated, but well insulated & he kept the bottles of pop in ice-water & ice ... so you had to slide the lid open on top & reach down into the cold ice-water to git yer bottle of pop ~ was always easy to find the 3-V Cola bottles, because they were bigger/taller than all the others & stuck up a couple inches above all the others.

I recall many a hot summer afternoon, riding my old Schwinn bike (wit big fat maypop tires) all the way to Havensville, which was a lil' over 3 miles ~ dusty old gravel country road ~ to git me a cold bottle of 3-V at Harley's drug store. Often dat trip was a complete leap of faith, on account I din't have NO money, so I had to hope I could find enough pop bottles alongside the road & cash them in to git enough money (return was 3 cents) for a bottle of pop. It was a lotta hassle ... Harley din't cash in empties, so had to take them down to Fordham's General Store to cash them in ... then ride back up to Harley's to git my 3-V Cola. Sheesh ... now tell me, do you think a kid would go to that much trouble now-days for a bottle of sody pop???

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Leslie Gore ~ She's A Fool