Article by Nils Peterson: first printed by Mercury News. Posted 09/22/2009
I think I can pinpoint the moment the United States started its wobble towards obesity. The year, 1947. We were recovering from the austerities of World War II. There wasn't enough food around to get fat then. You would have had to get a couple extra ration books from the black market.
My family had moved up to Mt. Vernon, NY, where I played baseball with the neighborhood gang on a small, lumpy field that had been a Victory Garden. At first, over the fence was a home run, then a double, and when most of us could clear the fence, an out. Over the fence was a pain, the left fielder scrambling over the railing to chase the ball before it started rolling down the hill. If you didn't get it quick, it could go a quarter of a mile. 
After the game, we would go down the street to the corner store, pull a soda out of the red ice chest with a white Coca-Cola emblem emblazoned on it. Beside the colas, there would be orange pop, root beer, grape, maybe even a sarsaparilla submerged in the ice. We'd give the grumbly old storekeeper a nickel, flip off the cap with the opener attached to the side of the chest and go sit on the stoop to argue about the Yankees. Satisfying. But here is where verse comes in to widen our waistlines. We all listened to the radio, and we all heard this:
Twelve full ounces that's a lot.
Twice as much for a nickel too.
Pepsi Cola is the drink for you.
The fact is, though there was Pepsi, those of us who were connoisseurs of cola preferred Coke. It was less sweet and had a more interesting taste. But a serious challenge, "Twice as much for a nickel." We were hot and thirsty and that shapely Coke bottle emptied fast.
We had grown up in a time of depression and war when a nickel was something not easily come by. It seemed almost a sin not to get all we could for our money. The part of me that later grew up to like good wine bought Coke. The part that buys wine by the box bought Pepsi.
Doing the numbers, the Coke bottle of that day contained 6 ounces. Pepsi doubled the size and doubled, at least, the calories while doubling their sales. Sixty years later at the new corner store, one can purchase drinks of 54 ounces, nine times the old Coke size.
One of the definitions of poetry is "memorable speech." Well, I insist it's not poetry, but I'lI never get that jingle out of my head. It sits there side by side with "To be or not to be," "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day," and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."
As a footnote, I must confess I have my parents' old set of glassware, and its martini glass holds about a quarter of the amount of the one I usually use, but clearly that's another story.
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