European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 9, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Columns Lawn ornament by Dave that old Coke bottle was the real thing by John Windrow staff columnist forever fascinated by the Are devoting plenty of space to coca cola and its new coca cola lost its precious heritage when it changed the Coke comes in a Bright red can or a plastic bottle the size of a tapered stove or a plastic bottle that looks vaguely like the Green Glass bottles of none of these containers can carry water for the great old bottle of Days gone when you gripped one of those bottles in your you knew you had a hold on it was from fire forged it had that delightful Cool Green color of clean  what a melodious clinking a Case of them made rattling in a wooden the crates were important when i was a boy in a Good half of the male population would have had no place to sit while they idled away the Long summer afternoons hanging around gasoline stations had it not been for upended coca cola the Coke bottling Plant by the Railroad was a fascinating what a wonderful thing to see the bottle washing machine with its whirling and the automatic capping machine that was always Worth a trip across periodically it would slam a Cap on with too much Force and Send Glass and syrup spewing in All pretty exciting stuff where i came coca cola bottles helped me find out about when i was in the fourth a worldly eight grader explained to me one Day on the school bus that girls were curved above and below their middles just like a Coke look at this he said lascivious by rolling an empty bottle in his if you put a blonde wig on youd think it was Marilyn i got so excited i could hardly stay on the peanuts and Coke were the rage you bought a Nickel bag of peanuts and carefully poured them into the then you Shook it until it almost spewed and turned it draining the entire contents at a single the peanuts would slide Down floating in the Foamy mastering this was very important if you wanted to impress the fair 1 tried it once with a big Orange and thought id killed Ever have big Orange shoot up your nose with peanuts when the hungarian uprising of 1956 took a truck Driver told me the hungarians were making Molotov cocktails out of coca cola bottles filled with he said they were blowing up russian i think now he must have wine no i often went Coon Hunting with my father and he always carried some gasoline in a Coke bottle sealed with a whisky Cork for starting fires while we listened to the dogs please let me carry the Coke id beg i slipped Between the Oak Trees in the holding it in front of dreaming of destroying russian tanks in the streets of Coke bottles Are Dandy As anyone who has Ever watched a bar fight or read a police blotter will a pal of mine from Missouri used to Tell the tale of a layabout named spec who could throw a Coke bottle like a always striking his foe Between the eyes with the Small he nailed a Guy like that one night in in a fight Over a crap he told spec was so sure hed killed he jumped a freight and Rode All the Way into Arkansas before he called Home and found out the Guy was still so he hitchhiked later i was introduced to Bourbon and too much of it can put holes in your Teeth and your liver at the same i had a Cousin who was quite fond of he bought a Han operated capping machine and made himself six packs of Bourbon and Coke to take to he worked nights and things got we picked cattails off the Pond soaked them in stood them in Coke bottles and used them for torches when we fished at by we filled the bottles up with Sand and used them for Trot line they were Handy i feel sorry for people who grow up with cans and plastic bottles instead of the real May stripes Magazine