When does a person's first love affair occur?
During childhood.
And what is that love?
Sweets.

For many kids growing up in Michigan, it was pop. If you wanna call it soda, soda pop, soft drink, or carbonated beverage, fine. You know what I mean.

The price of pop has changed drastically since I was a kid. I remember the International Harvester shop down on the corner from where I grew up – they had this pop machine that looked like one of those bathtub freezers. You open the lid, and there are all these yummy 10-ounce bottles of various kinds of pop, hanging between two steel rods, floating in ice cold water. You put a dime in the slot, slide the bottle of your choice toward the end, pull up, and the little gate opens and you have your pop.

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All us kids tried our darndest to get away with sliding two bottles of pop out that gate...we all tried and all failed. It seemed so simple to do but nobody could master it...even with two people trying.

Opening that pop cooler and being faced with all those colorful bottle caps sent all the kids drooling: a purple cap was grape, blue was cream soda, red was either cherry, raspberry, or strawberry, green was lemon-lime, brown was root beer, and the cola cap colors varied.

The stand-up pop machine was another fixture: put your money in, open the door, and yank out your choice horizontally...then another bottle rolled down to take its place.

Anyone can think back on their childhood days and remember their favorite brands of pop...and lament that so many of them aren't around anymore. So take a look at the gallery below, and see how many of these old pop brands you recall. Then show your parents, your grandparents, and great-grandparents. I could go on and on with more, but I stopped at fifty.

There's something here for everybody.

50 Discontinued Soda Pops

MORE STUFF:

LOOK: 40 Discontinued & Special Edition Kellogg's Cereals

Gallery Credit: John Robinson

Discontinued Post Cereals

Vintage Cereals of The Battle Creek Food Company

 

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