RC Cola

R.C. Cola, don't remember the taste, but I remember the bottle caps. Why? They opened a magic door to a world I had not yet taken a step..the movie theater.

The summer I was six, just before entering first grade, my next door neighbor came over and asked my mom if they could take me and my older brother to the movies. Linda was 14 and she had a group of neighborhood friends that were going to the free movies...that is they were free if you collected enough bottle caps. Linda was an interesting girl. Ready to start high school, yet not too old to play with the little girl next door. At that time in my life, she was my hero..someone I wanted to be like when I entered that magic world of the teenage.
At six, I was content to peek into her world, and on this particular day, she invited me to join her and 3 of her friends, her sister and my older brother to a trip to the movie theater.

All we had to do was collect bottle caps for RC Cola. AT that time I didn't know what RC Cola was and I knew we didn't drink it, but we were told all we had to do was ask Mrs. Cotton and she would let us have as many bottle caps as we wanted.
So that afternoon I went across the street to "The Little Store" and Mrs. Cotton took the bottle cap collector off of the side of the cooler and dumped them onto a newspaper. We went though them and collected 21 RC Cola bottle caps.

My mom washed them. (go figure) I spent the rest of the afternoon stacking them into pryamid shapes, mini castles and other designs. I thought they were great fun.
Then on the appointed day, the caps were placed in a paper bag and one of the moms dropped us off at the movies. Now I don't really remember what was showing. I don't remember if we were really parent free and trusted into the hands of 4 teens or if one of the parents came along. All I remember is that it was my first movie and I thought it was great fun.

Picture a large darkened room with dark green cloth covered seats, air conditioning and music playing. Hundreds of children hustled around the room eating popcorn and drinking soda. The theater had a stage in front with long green velvet curtains that hung in front of the screen. After we found our seats, a man in a red suit and little cap pushed a cart down the aisle and handed out free popcorn, hotdogs and soda. Then just before the movie started, a man began calling numbers from the other half of the ticket stub. One of the numbers was on my ticket! Linda held my hand and I went up to collect my prize. It was a 45 record of some popular song. Linda thought it was a great prize. I had not yet discovered music. The only songs I knew where those my dad played on the record player or listened to on the old car radio, always tuned to county. Music to me was Marty Robbins.

When I got home that afternoon, we played the record. I don't remember liking it very much...but I loved the record itself. It was the first thing I had ever won.
I carried it around every where I went, even if we went to the store.
One afternoon I took it with me to go pick up my dad from work. I must have gotten distracted or the novelty of the record had begun to wear off, because I forgot it on the back shelf of the car. A few days later when I was helping my dad clean the car I found it....warped, melted, changed into some strange shape. I wad sad, but fascinated that such a heavy plastic thing could melt.

I remember Linda asking me about that record a few weeks later. I told her what happened and she said "too bad, it was a nice song." It was? I don't think I played after the first day. To me it was a symbol of a different world that I was connected to..but not yet a part of. It was a grown up world with movies, music, raffle drawings and activities that didn't involve parents. A world that I was not ready to step into at age 6...but now knew existed.