King Size Coke

We have a local television station that plays retro shows like the Brady Bunch and Leave it to Beaver and during the breaks they play old-time commercials. Today we caught a commercial for king-size Coke. I joked to Bruce that king-size, back in the day, probably meant 16 ounces. A quick Google search proved out my theory.

Wonder what the 24-ounce Diet Coke I'm drinking now would have been called had it existed in the 70s -- giant size?

Looking at the glass Coke bottle took me down memory lane to the Coke machine at my grade school. For 10-cents it dispensed a glass bottle of Coke with a metal bottle cap. The trick was to use the on-machine bottle cap remover and catch the cap before it fell inside the Coke machine. All of the kids had to save up as many Coke caps as possible to cash them in for free ride tickets at Columbian Park during Coke days in the summer.

I was trying to remember the rides at Columbian Park, without much luck.

I do remember there being a giant slide, a merry-go-round and a train among the rides that required a ticket. I'm sure there were more, but I can't recall what they were.

Columbian Park had paddle boats, swings and a curley cue slide, an awesome swimming pool, lions and monkeys. The swimming pool was a huge round cement pool that started out shallow all the way around, with the deep water and diving boards fenced off in the center.

My brother, sister and I would start bugging mom early on summer mornings to take us to the pool. We knew it didn't open until 1pm, but we were very anxious to get there. It cost 25-cents to swim until 5pm. It was the best way a kid could spend a hot summer afternoon.

If you have memories of Columbian Park as a kid of the 60s / 70s, share them with me and help me remember the other rides they had (and the name of that big slide).

Trip Down Memory Lane

After I left my brother's house on Mother's Day, I drove through downtown Lafayette on my way to the cemetery to visit with my dad and leave flowers on his grave.

I took the opportunity to snap some photos of some places that were part of my day-to-day life, when I was much younger.

The original home of Gillis Tile. The building was just a few blocks from our house and it had an office in the front and lots of storage space in the back for Dad's tile and supplies. I know it had an upstairs, but I can't recall what it looked like.

St. Boniface School has changed a bit since I attended. They've added landscaping where there used to be concrete. I went to St. Boniface from first through eight grade. For most of those years my class was a tight-knit group of 13 kids.

Mrs. Ross was my favorite teacher. I had her for both 7th and 8th grade. Ms. Bates was my least favorite teacher. She was somewhat radical and supported McGovern for president -- the entire class rooted for Nixon even though we were much too young to vote. Thinking back on that 5th grade year, I have to give Ms. Bates credit for getting the students interested in government. Sandy, Theresa and I lived closest to the school so on the last day, Ms. Bates asked us if we'd stay late and help her clean up the classroom. Afterward, she took us to the Frozen Custard for a treat of our choice. I ordered a 7-dip ice cream cone. She didn't even flinch at my greediness. It sort of made me feel guilty for being so mean to her the whole year.

We lived about four blocks from school so we walked to and from each day. I gave my little sister the nickname "Poke-Along Peanut" because she always lagged behind as we all walked to school together.



St. Boniface Church is where I received my first communion, was crowned May Queen, celebrated my confirmation and went to mass for nine years. Ft. Ray was my favorite priest. He came to St. Boniface, as Friar Ray, when I was in the sixth or seventh grade. He started a guitar mass and most of the girls in my class were in the band -- Martha May, Sandy Hinton, Theresa Baker and I all played guitar.


O'Rear's Pastry Shop is right across the street from St. Boniface Church. My Mom and Dad would give us money on Sunday morning to get treats for the family. And, my brother and I often stopped there after we were finished with our paper routes.

There were quite a few incredible donuts and pastries at O'Rears that I've not come across anywhere else. My favorites were butterscotch brownies, cherry turnovers, long horns, Bavarian creme donuts, tractor tire donuts and their glazed donuts were even better than Krispy Kremes.



The Lafayette Theater looks exactly the same now as it did when I went there as a child -- on the outside that is. On their website, you can see the inside has been renovated. I remember seeing most every James Bond movie and all of the Disney movies here. It was just around the corner from the Mars Theater which is now the Long Center. I saw my first rock concert at the Mars Theater -- it was Cheap Trick on their In Color In Black and White tour.





McCord Candies was a great place to satisfy a sweet tooth -- and what kid doesn't have a giant sweet tooth. McCord's has a soda fountain and not sure if they still have the same counters, but when I was a kid, the counters were higher than I was tall. They were glassed-front and full of all sorts of chocolates and penny candy.

What's for lunch?

Sammiches.... yummmmm!



When I was a kid, in Catholic grade school, we didn't have a cafeteria and had to take our lunch to school. Every day my mom would make us each a bologna sammich, on white bread, with Miracle Whip.

The best part was that the sammich, carefully enclosed in an Alligator Baggie, would get nice and soft and warm and squished below an apple or a Little Debbie treat, as it sat in a paper lunch bag on the shelf in the coat room.


Squished flat, with the crusts carefully ripped off, was my favorite way to enjoy my daily bologna sammich.

One day, dad made our lunches because mom was in the hospital recovering from surgery. Imagine my surprise when I bit into my bologna sammich and, instead of the yummy Miracle Whip I expected to taste between the bologna and the bread, I tasted butter. Yuch... who would even think of putting butter on a bologna sammich. Dad's defense was that he liked butter on his sammiches because it helped the bread slide down the throat. And, he thought we'd like it, too.

Thinking about odd condiments on sammiches, hubby Bruce made me an egg sammich one morning... one of my favorite, yet seldom eaten breaksfasts. My favorite way to make these is with one fried egg with a slice of cheese and a little salt and pepper on white bread. As I was driving to work, I bit into the sammich made with love and tasted something very wrong. I spit out the bite and, when I reached the stop sign on CR 22, I opened the sammich to investigate the odd taste. It was Miracle Whip. Big yuch! Who eats Miracle Whip on an egg sammich??? Guess what his reasoning was... "makes it slide down the throat easier."

Facebook reunion

I received a Facebook friend hookup invite from a guy I went to kindergarten with.

Actually we went to the same high school, but I really don't remember him from high school. But, as soon as I saw his name, I remembered him as the cutest boy in my kindergarten class.