Jill's Journal: 10-cent spas and egg coffee nights

I grew up during a time when you could buy a can of soda for a dime. That’s right. A single dime. Two nickels. Ten pennies.

While these cans of soda were not the name-brand Coca-Cola or Pepsi Co. varieties, there was a huge assortment of flavors from which to choose. The labels on the cans were more generic, like the store brand’s Elf label. Why I remember that name specifically, but can’t remember a password to log onto a website, is beyond me.

Anytime our family was hosting the relatives, Mom gave me the honor of deciding which flavors would get plunked in the shopping cart. Grape, root beer, orange, lemon lime was just a sampling of the colorful cans I chose. These same brands and flavors were often served at other gatherings hosted by our grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Let’s face it., even back then, 10-cent cans of soda were affordable to nearly every family budget. 

Even more exciting was the availability to enjoy as many of the 10-cent sodas as we wanted or as long as the supply held out.

It was the same for the “adult” beverage bin, too. To keep it affordable, I remember seeing ice-cold bottles of off-brand beers, like Blatz, Hamm’s and Schell’s. They, too, could enjoy one, or two, maybe even three, that is, if the supply held out.

This is where I got my first sip of beer. It wasn’t uncommon to ask Dad for a “sip or two”, and most times, he obliged. Beyond a “sip or two,” however, was surely out of the question and usually ended with, “Go play with your cousins.”

I can’t remember a gathering that didn’t end without “lunch” and the ladies brewing up a pot of “egg coffee.” Lunch was usually sandwiches, some chips, potato salad, home-canned pickles, cake or bars of some sort and of course, “egg coffee.”

For those who haven’t heard of egg coffee, essentially, a raw egg was mixed in with the coffee grounds, and then brewed. I well remember the smell of the coffee brewing on the stove. It was the smell of the evening is coming to an end soon.

I haven’t enjoyed the smell of egg coffee cooking on the stove in a very, very long time. And, honestly, I don’t know if stores even sell single-cans of off-brand sodas, surely not for a mere dime.

It was a simpler time. When kids were happy with a barrel full of off-brand sodas for the taking and egg coffee brewing in the kitchen.