My Orange Crush Christmas

In simpler times--when I didn't maintain a four sodas-a-day habit--pop did not flow freely down my esophagus. The fridge was always stocked with my dad's habit (I'm imagining 2-liter Coke bottles, but we might not have had them in that size yet), but we children had no access to that. We pedaled down the road and spent our allowance on candy and pop at the SuperAmerica convenience store, or got pop with our kid's meal at McDonald's or Burger King.

One Christmas when I was about 12, my sisters and I each received a 12-ounce can of pop in our Christmas stockings. Mine was a can of Orange Crush. I remember having a wooden bottle opener-display shelf that I made in shop (actually, my shop teacher made it as I watched smugly. I could never do anything in shop, so I tried to hand over my projects as "the example" so that "Teach" could make mine and I could pass the class)--on this I proudly displayed my special can of confection.

My sisters quickly downed their drinks, while mine sat dangling four feet off the ground on my little shelf. The days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, until finally--just before the next Christmas--I refrigerated my Orange Crush and gulped it down with bravado in front of my little sisters. Ahh, the pleasure of delayed gratification!

Comments

[Darnell Lamb]

Orange Crush ... oh the memories. During that era, the Denver Broncos much vaunted defense came to be known by that name. Randy Gradishar, Tom "ESPN" Jackson, Lyle Alzado, Ruben Carter, Louis Wright, and of course myself. That is how I got my moniker "The Professor of Truth". I shook the lies out of the opposing offense and the showed them the way. I ground their faces into the turf.

[Darnell Lamb]

Orange Crush ... oh the memories. During that era, the Denver Broncos much vaunted defense came to be known by that name. Randy Gradishar, Tom "ESPN" Jackson, Lyle Alzado, Ruben Carter, Louis Wright, and of course myself. That is how I got my moniker "The Professor of Truth". I shook the lies out of the opposing offense and the showed them the way. I ground their faces into the turf.