Make mine a Pommac - or - Happy Anniversary!

Dear Readers, This week Mr. Peabody is setting the Wayback Machine to 1965. However, we will first go to the mailbag in order to assist another confused Kroger shopper. Dear Kris, Help! I share your frustration with Kroger rearranging their aisles. My dad, Harvey, is fond of (or maybe addicted to) the little tapioca pudding cups. They were always located in the refrigeration section just south of the butter and margarine. I looked from the cottage cheese past the eggs, juice and yogurt. The tapioca is nowhere to be found. Sincerely, Rebecca Ann Favors Dear Rebecca, The little refrigerated pudding cups are now located in their own little refrigerator section in Aisle 4 along with the unrefrigerated ones. However, you might want to consider making dad some fluffy tapioca from scratch. His euphoria from consuming the fluffy tapioca will be a plus, when you give him the bills for your upcoming wedding. Now forward into the past: My how time does fly, it is hard to believe that 1965 was 50 years ago. But it was and I’m sure of it because I did the math. I even did the new math to double check. So, it is time to start planning a 50th anniversary party. A lot of important stuff happened in 1965, so no matter what your special interests; you should be able to find something to celebrate. If you are a football fan, this Thanksgiving is the 50th anniversary of the first color broadcast of an NFL football game. The game was between the Baltimore Colts and the Detroit Lions. I remember that Thanksgiving well. We had Thanksgiving at my aunt Bee Gee’s house in New Palestine that year. However, Aunt Bee Gee still had a black and white TV. We were watching the game in fifty shades of grey instead of in living color and there wasn’t a single Cialis commercial. We should have been bummed out. It is a well known fact that most cases of depression in the 1960s were a direct result of viewers in homes with black and white TVs being subjected to TV announcers repeatedly bragging about shows being in “living color.” Lucky for us, aunt Bee Gee had put extra marshmallows in her sweet potato casserole. This year is also the 50th wedding anniversary of Congressman Glen Morley and Katie Holstrum. The couple was married on the TV showThe Farmer’s Daughter in the episode To Have and Hold. Aunt Bee Gee had to reach for the tissues. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. As for me, the biggest event in 1965 was the purchase of my new Schwinn Stingray. I had been saving up money from my newspaper route for months. Every week I would stop by the local Schwinn dealership with my boyhood friend and fellow newspaper carrier, Terry Ogden, to eyeball the selection of new Stingrays.

I’ll never forget the day I rode my new Stingray out of the showroom. We celebrated by stopping by Totten’s Pure gas station on East Broadway and buying a selection of candy bars from the vending machines. Totten’s had by far the best selection of vending machine candy in town. However, for such a big event, Totten’s did not sell an appropriate beverage. For that we would have to go to Wiley’s Market on Noble Street.

Pommac was a premium bottled beverage sold exclusively at Wiley’s. It was marketed as “The soft drink from the Continent”. The advertisements for Pommac were all full of adults looking all continental and having a good time. We thought it was champagne for kids. I was really looking forward to planning a big party for the 50thanniversary of my new Stingray. I thought it would be fun to invite Terry over and see if he could still ride a wheelie after consuming a couple bottles of Pommac. However, Pommac didn’t seem to be available anywhere at any price. I did a little research and learned that it was discontinued in the late 60s. It seems that instead of being a healthy soft drink made from fruit, it was instead sweetened by a chemical called cyclamate. Cyclamate was discovered to cause cancer so all food items using the chemical had to be discontinued. I guess it’s lucky for Terry and me that we usually just drank the sugar laden soft drinks out of the vending machines at Totten’s Pure. Warning: Quoting from this article or mentioning it in conversation is the true mark of a bon vivant. Disclaimer: All characters and facts in this work were true in 1965. The author takes no responsibility for the future.