SODA BOTTLES AND PENNY CANDY

"Well I used to wake the morning before the rooster crowed Searching for soda bottles to get myself some dough." Many of you will recognize these words from The Ballad of Curtis Loew, written by Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant and performed by the great Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

You see picking up soda or as we always called them Coke bottles, (It really didn't matter what the label said), were as good as gold when I was young. Each and every bottle we found was worth money at the little country stores in our communities.

At one time soda bottles were sterilized and then re-filled by the cola companies. They didn't wind up in landfills, and each little bottle could be worth an average of 5 to 10 cents apiece.

Now that doesn't sound like much, but every little store had as one of their more prominent sections the penny candy section. Penny candy was individually wrapped candies that for the most part were only a penny each.

As you can imagine it didn't take too many bottles to fill a little brown sack with enough sweets to last a lifetime, (or maybe at least 'til the end of the day.)

To many of us our first taste of commerce was swapping those empty bottles to satisfy our cravings. And my store of choice was within walking or more times than not a short bike ride.

It was a little store called Pop's, and to this day I can remember Pop or his wife behind the counter, always looking out for us as we shopped. And we never could resist one try at the spotted gum ball, (A story for another time).

A few years back a local printer gave me a print of my favorite store, which I'm sharing here. However there were many other stores that I couldn't wait to visit, Gene Orr's and Browns were a couple more. I'll miss those little family owned stores, but will forever cherish the experience and memory.