Ah, yes, country stores. I love “in the old days” stories, and now I’m old enough to qualify to tell them.
In the old days, soft drinks—everyone called them pop—came in glass bottles. My earliest memory was that small Cokes cost 5 cents and 10 ounce drinks cost 10 cents. If you returned the glass bottle in good shape, you got 2 cents back. Just like today, some people thought it was too much trouble to recycle/return the bottles and often just threw them out a car window on the roadside. One man recalled that the sides of the roads were full of pop bottles at the time.
Their carelessness opened up business opportunities for youngsters. Remember, kids roamed free much of the time, especially in the summer, with no organized sports or activities. It was OK to spend the day roaming the river and streams or playing with neighbor kids, as long as we showed up for supper at our own homes. (Just an observation: Boys were much freer to do these things than most girls.)
If kids needed a candy bar or bottle of pop, they just looked along the road for empty pop bottles. Five empties paid for a candy bar. Ten would get candy and a full bottle of pop.
You could redeem the empties at any country store. Hays Lantz Jr. and Eddie Wittig returned bottles to Bergton Store. My husband and siblings returned their collected bottles to Miller Turner’s store, Criders. No everyone used their earnings for candy. For instance, George VanOrden walked the road from Chimney Rock to Bennie’s Beach, picking up bottles to trade at Bennie’s for a $1 wooden arrow for his bow. He’d shoot it until the arrow broke, then he’d hit the road looking for more bottles. Another man said used his bottle earnings to buy World War II surplus gear at the Army Navy store which was loicated just east of Court Square.
For some kids, sorting those empties was another employment opportunity. Empty bottles had to be sorted by bottling company and put in the correct wooden case. It was heavy work for young teens. The wooden case of empty small Coke bottles weighs more than today’s 24-pack of full Coke cans. The sorter also had to know which brands went into which cases; you couldn’t put a Coke bottle into a Pepsi case. And small Cokes didn’t go in a case with larger size Cokes. Veteran sorter Angelique Spitzer at Snyder’s Tavern and Grocery at Mathias pointed out some bottles were gross to clean if they had been used as a spittoon for tobacco spit!
Store owners’ kids were the usual sorters. Ronnie and Cammie Fulk sorted at Mac’s Superette Gary Hoover carried many empties up 15 concrete steps at his dad Lloyd Hoover’s store, Cootes Store. At Fulks Run Grocery, sorters included Larry Custer, Jim Fulk, Darrel Turner, Ron Turner, and many others over the years.
Five different soda pop companies delivered to Fulks Run Grocery. A cheat-sheet list of soda brands is still on the basement wall, along with cardboard signs representing each pop company. The written list made it quicker for a new sorter to get to work.
How many of these drinks do you remember? Which was your favorite? Pepsi sold Teem, Jefferson, and Club. Dr. Pepper sold Mtn. Dew and Grapette. Coke had Tab, Crass, and Fresca. RC Cola had Nehi, Party Pak, Diet Rite, Ginger Ale, and Upper 10. 7-Up also sold Brownie, Sun Crest, True Ade, Like, Double cola, and Frostie.
I don’t know the names of the bottlers, but Casey Billhimer shared that over the years, Elkton Lithia Bottling Company bottled 7up, Brownie, RC Cola, Double Cola, Sun Crest flavors, Frostie, Tru-Ade, Elk Club Ginger Ale and other Elk Club flavors, Like and others.
One former bottle sorter remembers that the pop delivery men used to leave them tips in a jar for doing the sorting.
What about today? Still want to search for empties? If 2 cents a bottle doesn’t get your attention, how about $10 or $20 per bottle? Casey Billhimer says that some of the older returnables bring up to $100 each. So, search your old buildings and see if you can hit the pop bottle jackpot.
