THE ROCKAWAY I KNEW
By Matthew Bashie
CHAPTER ELEVEN: BASEBALL CARDS & SODA CANS
When is it safe to drink from an oil can? Should I collect baseball cards or football cards? Should I buy a Milky Way bar or a Forever Yours? Only a few of the "world-shattering" questions that ran though the mind of this nine year old back in the early 50s.
Of all the traits I inherited from my parents, the one that I capitalized on most was my innate ability to spend tons of money on unnecessary things. In my mind I can still see and hear my father say "you don't need it" regarding most of the things I collected and brought home during my childhood. My dad was the kind of guy who didn't need to surround himself with "things" in order to feel self-fulfilled. On the other hand, my mom collected dozens of, what was then referred to as "dust collectors." Trinkets which were placed on tables and scattered all over our small apartment in the Wavecrest section of Queens.
Although history records that Pepsi-Cola was the first soft-drink manufacturer to introduce soft drinks in cans to the American public, the true distinction has to go to an independent Brooklyn bottling company which brought out a line of its own "soda water" in metal containers during the early part of 1952. The product was called "Super Coola" and I can still see and hear the many advertising campaigns that promoted the product: "No Deposit; No Return". Up until that time, empty bottles brought a two-cent refund at local stores. Now something new and exciting was to be added to the neighborhoods - empty and discarded soda cans lying in street gutters and in empty fields.
The "Super-Coola" soft drink was available in a variety of flavors -such as standard Cola, Orange, Ginger Ale, Root Beer, and Grape. What was most unusual (aside from the fact that the soda was now in a metal can) was the shape of the container itself. It looked exactly like the standard oil can of the day - a barrel-shaped body with a tapered spout which ended up looking like the typical glass bottle of the day - and in fact, the can could be "re-capped" and the unused portion of the fluid could be consumed later on in the day. That fact that soda in a can tastes like "can" did not seem to matter that much because the product enjoyed wide distribution and it sold extremely well.
How well I remember running down to the local neighborhood grocery to buy myself some of the new drink. At the time, it seemed like everyone else was also availing themselves of this modern invention. From then on, whenever my mom went shopping, I could always depend upon her to pick up a dozen or so cans of the "cheapo" product for me because "Super Coola" cost a lot less than the national brands and there was no deposit charged for the product container.
Although baseball and football (and even basketball) "trading" cards were the big "craze for kids" back at the beginning of the 1950s, other card sets were also offered at only a nickle per pack, which included five or six color cardboard photos and a slab of pink colored smelly chewing gum. I bought everything I could afford.
I acquired baseball cards, football cards, - you get the idea! But in addition there were "speciality" cards. One specific set was called "Scoop" - a series of cards with a factious newspaper front page on one side and a color picture of the event on the reverse. All of the "Scoops" reported historical events like the crash of the Hindenburg, the sinking of the Titanic, but other cards showed events that took place hundreds of years before - like Christopher Columbus' discovery of a new world.
Each card set, whether it be sports or non-sports, was sold in display or "counter boxes" at the same price of a nickle per pack. The idea was to find out how many cards were in each set and then to continue to buy the five-cent packs to hopefully collect all of the cards within the set. The more astute children would trade cards with each other - eliminating most of their duplicates. Many children did not collect but used the cards for play things such as "flipping" - a childlike form of gambling where you bet your card against another kid's card - sort of like a coin toss. Some children put the trading cards into the spokes of their bicycles to produce a clicking "motor" noise when the bike was in motion.
These early trading cards are the very ones now considered so valuable. The standard excuse for not having held on to your childhood collection is to blame "mom" for throwing them away. "If only I had saved those cards, I would be a millionaire today!" - the common cry. It should be of no surprise to any of you that I still have my card collections. In fact, I still have many of them in the original waxed packaging - including the gum. Unfortunately, I did not save the sports cards; I collected and held on to everything else BUT!
I was never a big candy eater. I was a little kid with a small frame. When I was 15 years old, I looked to be about 10. I was still under 100 pounds when I started college at age 17. Perhaps if I ate more candy? Anyway - an after-dinner treat was to run down to the local candy store - in my case it was called The Wavecrest Luncheonette - to spend five cents on a sweet treat. Back in those days, almost all candy cost the same nickle. Whether it was a Baby Ruth or a Snickers bar, or a roll of Life Savers, same thing; same cost. While most of my friends preferred the milk chocolate Milky Way, I preferred the dark-chocolate Milky Way - which at that time was called "Forever Yours". Mars Company still makes the "Forever Yours" bar today but they call it something completely different.
During the summer months, it was not uncommon for store owners to "shove" ice cream sticks into the narrow ends of the candy bars and then to put them into the freezer and sell them as frozen Milky Way bars - for which they charged an additional two cents. Naturally, whenever I think of frozen candy bars, it brings me back to my youth - growing up in the small town of Far Rockaway.
If you wish to contact me at any time, feel free to do so through this web site. I always love hearing from my fans and friends. M.B.
I always love hearing from my fans and friends. M. B.