Those two nickels I used to get every day as an allowance were sufficient for most of my needs as a child. After all, it would provide two candy bars, two Popsicles, or could be combined to buy a can of Shasta.
But occasionally, a young man might need a bit more cash in hand. You could go ask mom or dad for more nickels. Yeah, right. THAT would work.
No, if you needed more moolah, you had to earn it. And there just weren't that many job opportunities for a seven-year-old kid.
But there was always a source of income for the industrious: picking up pop bottles.
Pop bottles were frequently tossed out of car windows by the wealthy (i.e. those who didn't mind tossing two cents into the ditch). And there they lay, awaiting youngsters (and winos) needing to make some pocket change. All they had to do was seek, find, and lug.
Moonwink Grocery was happy to take them off of my hands. And at two cents apiece, all it took was scoring five lousy pop bottles to double my daily allowance! How much easier could it be to get rich?
I remember spending many a summer day prowling the ditches of Miami, Oklahoma seeking the glass commodities that fetched legal tender at ANY market that happened to be close. Of course, sometimes we had to take certain brands of bottles to specific stores that sold them. Not everybody sold Canada dry, as I recall, and you would hack off store owners who didn't by attempting to unload them at their places of business.
I guess there are still states that mandate returnable bottles. And I guess kids in those states (and winos) pick up the bottles to cash them in. But most of the U.S. youngsters have never even heard of making money by picking up the spent soft drink receptacles.
That's too bad. There was something nicely satisfying about trading a valuable commodity for cash. It made the candy or pop taste better, somehow. And it was also good for the environment.
For some more great pop-bottle-picking-up memories and photos of classic bottles, check out http://tulsatvmemories.com/pop.html
Comments (4)
I have a slightly later memory....that of when Aluminum became the metal of choice for cans(remember when Miller lite was the first? and Coors?)....being a great
recyclable material, many scavengers walked around parks with hefty bags picking them up, especially in the early morning on sat and sun after later night parties at the park.
Kept a bunch of old guys busy, and away from the wives, till ole rigor mortis stepped in......
Posted by scott | July 20, 2007 6:30 AM
Posted on July 20, 2007 06:30
Oh yes. Picking bottles was a great memory!
Posted by cantremember | July 26, 2007 2:52 PM
Posted on July 26, 2007 14:52
This was definately something I did as a child. Since my mom loved drinking Pepsi and Diet Rite, we alwas had large amounts of bottles to return to our super market. It's amazing how many bottles that could be found along the roads and creeks. Seems we got three cents per bottle and or five cents. This money we got for returned bottles help purchase all the products a kid might buy! I mean we would bring in boxes of these bottles. I remember in the storage rooms in the store with all these bottles stacked up. The cardboard bottle carriers were pretty common to carry the empty bottles in! I did this in Maryland. Somewhere along the way, Maryland stop bottle returns. I know Vermont and a few other states still have bottle returns. I collect old bottles these days and some of these old soda bottled with applied painted labels are becoming collectable. Things I would buy wirh returned bottle money: Zagnut Bars, Big Buddy Gum, Slurpies, Candy Cigerettes, Baseball Cards and squirt and cap guns! Try finding soda bottles anymore. They are likely to be in an antique store or in someones collection. I would imagine all that glass from way back had been recycled.
Posted by Rivers End | May 29, 2009 8:26 PM
Posted on May 29, 2009 20:26
What I remember is that on many rocky shores up here in Maine and Nova Scotia Canada as well, there was lots of broken glass that had become very smoothed by the water and rocks and sand action. One could find plenty anytime they wanted. Its much harder, usually impossible now.
Glass was the vehicle for drinks and nearly everything. Jars, bottle. And glass bottles always had silk screen printed on them. Many jars had it, too, but you could find some with paper glued on. Glass was heavy to deliver and take home but it was very healthy. No BPAs to mimic estrogen in us as in many plastics today. No taste from glass. It seems for every solution today, we create new problems. The 60s was much more problem free till we changed the things in the 60s during the 70s.
And recall that glass jars had been a part of American home canning for a very long time. And if you still can today, you still need those glass jars. Some things never change. Some things never should change. “Change” is not always for the better. We might better understand that in a few more years ;-) Glass! It does a body good.
Posted by Scott Irv | May 29, 2009 10:48 PM
Posted on May 29, 2009 22:48