Who could wait to drive
the family sedan or wagon
to the Brookdale soda depot
on 6th Street or Sylvan?
Empty cases in the trunk
Scooting through tree-lined streets
To the back yard driveway off
Sylvan Avenue in Bloomfield
or the Allwood Circle.
Or downtown at Heller/Heller
on Franklin Avenue.
Grab a hand cart
and an empty case
Splintering wood
and later dark-blue plastic
Go through the stacks
of cases and fill them:
Birch beer – two or three,
kola, cream,
pale dry ginger ale, Cheers.
don’t forget quinine, too.
Blood red cherry and cherry-pit,
another birch
and fill it out with root beer,
more Kola, too
and orange soda, cream,
and bright green lemon-lime
Life never got
any better than this,
and we wouldn’t know
that for a long while
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Memories of Brookdale Soda
