Coca-cola can

Description: 

Coca-cola classic can with original formula seal.  Under the ingredients “CANNED UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, ATLANTA GA. BY COCA-COLA BOTTLING COMPANY WEST, INC., BISMARCK, N.D.58501 AND GREAT FALLS, MT. 59401. The copyright is "1986 THE COCA-COLA COMPANY”  There is some soot damage on it.

Story:

When I was in the fifth grade I was in a group called Acro.  We were an acrobatic tumbling group that would perform halftime at high school boys basketball games.  Not as impressive as a gymnastics team or the Fargo Acro team that used mini tramps and looked to be flying.  Ours was much more rudimentary and, to be honest (most of the others started in the 1st grade and I started in the 4th) I was not really good at it. But we did not compete and were not scored and so my lack of talent did not offend anyone and I felt free to keep trying.  However, I was naturally flexible. 

In the 5th grade our coach, Mrs. Barker, challenged us to develop the ability to do the splits and offered to buy a can of pop for anyone who learned to do the splits before she did.  Pop was not a daily feature of my life. (Being a Wisconsin girl now I want to type "soda" but in my Dakota days it was "pop" so I’m writing "pop" for this account.) Once a week on Friday we were given the privilege of having one glass of pop from my Father's supply.   Apart from that and from visits to grandparents in Winnipeg, if we wanted a can of pop, we had to spend our own money.  I think in 1983 the cost was 35 cents out of the vending machines by the gym.  My weekly allowance was 25 cents. Anyway the promise of a pop was enough to encourage me to work on my stretching each night and well before our first performance I was able to do the splits.  The thing is, I never got my can of pop.  She kept forgetting to get it for me. 

Now St Thomas Public School was a small school in a small town, so my grade school acro coach was my junior high language arts and phy ed instructor.  She also taught girls high school physical education.  I would, on occasion, remind her that she owed me a can of pop.  We would get dressed for gym class in high school and she would tell us to warm up by stretching and I’d slowly slide into the splits in front of her and say “you know, I’m kind of thirsty.”   No one else had taken her up on the challenge or at least no one ever made a point of expecting her to make good on her promise.  My senior year in the spring she asked me what my favorite pop was. I told her it was Coca-Cola Classic. (New Coke was still a thing.)  She filed that away and on awards night my senior year she added one award that was not in the program and presented me with a 12 pack of Coca-Cola.  

My classmate, Terry Mattson, asked if he could have one and I refused. Well, he asked for one and I offered to trade him for one of his many sports trophies, so technically he refused. For years I had lamented the fact that all my awards consisted almost entirely of certificates and ribbons and I had earned this.  Metals and trophies elluded me. My plan was to save the first can and make a base for it and fashion my own trophy out of it.  I cleaned it and left it on the counter, but Mom figured it was trash and tossed it out.   I was angry, but it's not like I didn't have a replacement for it, so the can pictured here is the second one from that 12 pack. I never mounted it.  Not sure where it was in our spare room, but it survived my house fire and here it is part of the only award I ever received for a sports-like activity.