The Green River

July 10, 2025

I feel sorry for those people that are young enough that they never got to go to an old fashioned soda fountain where a "soda Jerk" squirted whatever flavoring you asked for into a glass, then filled it with soda water. If you did this as a kid, what flavor did you get? They could make you a chocolate coke, vanilla phosphate, cherry coke (before they were cool), and my personal favorite, a green river, a lime drink with a nuclear bright green color. 

When I had a serious lawn mowing accident a number of years ago, I was in the hospital for a month.  For a usually active guy like me, that was depressing.  One of my friends could sense that I was pretty down and knew I liked green rivers, so she went over to Bauder's drug store and soda fountain and bought me the biggest one they had.  She brought it into my room and set it down on the little rolling table that went over the bed.  Just then my doctor came in and said, "You know you can't have that don't you?" Yet another disappointment. 

But when he left I looked at that huge styrofoam cup with that violently green liquid and thought, "There's no way I'm gonna pour that down the drain."  I poured it in the clear plastic urinal with the handle that they had sitting on the table.  Wow!  Was it green!!!!!

A nurse came in, stopped in her tracks, looked at it, then looked at me. 

"Are you alright?" she asked. 

I said, "Well, you're the nurse! You tell me!"