My mom was more moderate, but my father was a sugar freak, he would sit down and eat 2, thats right 2 boxes of chocolate covered cherry's, an entire bag of oreo's and such. My old man was a major sweettooth kinda guy.

When I was very young, I liked sweets, but it was in moderation, I would say by the time I was in 3rd grade, I was more along the lines of simpler things like pistachio's, and carrots and other raw vegetables, in fact my brothers wife has a garden and she comments all the time about how she will pick 3 cuucumbers for a big salad, and the next day theres only one cuz my brother developed a tasted for cucumbers (he hats the peels.) I eat the "baby" carrots by the handful.

For me, I think it's less of a deliberate creation of discipline, but rather of a diverse diet. I had aunts and uncles who had different tastes, I stopped chewing gum, because my neighbor, a nice old man, one day yelled at me for spitting my gum out on the cement walk of my house, and he called me over, and he gave me a small piece of wax, that was the same consistency of gum, but it was beeswax, that he had just spun. and I realized I enjoyed it much more than I did the almost cartoon flavors of gum.

Now a'days, I don't drink much soda, I like one everyonce in a while, usually while driving, but mostly I drink water. . .and of course beer, but I don't think that exactly counts, at least not in this reference.

I just find it kinda odd, that some people develop those habbits by isolation and habbit as you and he exhibit, or that they grow up thanks to an early development of a diverse palate.

Though I think I would have been a little better off if I had a lack of self destruction instilled in me when I was a kid.

Oh, one more thing, another occasional favorite for both myself and my brother that kinda surprised his wife. One day she came out to the garage and theres my brother and I each eating a raw potato,(wait I'm a republican) Potatoe, and she was kinda aghast. I guess not many people eat raw potatoes.

Sorry, didn't realize it was that long.
also,
my fathers a pretty slim guy, 6'4 prolly 185lb's.

pretty much the same deal at our house, only I don't think it was an anti-sugar deal, as much as it was an anti-frivolous thing.

My Dad was raised in Tampa in the height of the Great Depression...so he had a thing about doing anything that wasn't absolutley neccesary...this included store-bought items over homemade. I will be fifty in February. I recall the first pair of Levi's I owned, because I saved the money and bought them myself. It was pretty much the same way with Cokecolas.

It used to be embarrassing..and I was fairly pissed off at the old bastard for being so cheap, but he made up for it. We always had stuff like go-carts and strange animals, etc.

The biggest deal for us was the A & W after church on Wednesday night...WOW ! Frosty mug and all.

Being the waste-not/want-not (my Mom still washes out plastic bags...) folks that they were, they refused to pay interest on anything. The first house they bought was the last they had a mortgage on...pretty smart for a fella that quit school in the sixth grade to help raise his family.

Consequently, when Chrysler was about to go under, the old man was poised to pull the trigger on 30K shares...with a portion of his sixth grade mentality savings...and Donnah, Mom still won't buy cold drinks unless they are the cheap 3 for a dollar version (which I *gag* can't/won't stomach). Myself, I keep a couple stacks of various No Fear's Coke/Pepsi/pick out what you want/ etc. etc..
No booze though..I'm SB too...plus I'm a friend of Bill's, and you should all be grateful for that.

It was wierd at my house. My dad owned a beer store, so we could get cokes at cost, but my mom flat refused them in the house except for special occasions. For us, it was Kool-Aid every now and then, but mostly unsweet tea. But then we'd go to the store to work, and my dad would let us have one after getting some work done. They couldn't have cost more than a nickel, but it was a super-special treat. And across the parking lot was my uncle's hamburger stand with all the free fountain drinks I could pour down my gullet, but the taste didn't compare to a bottled soda water, so I always passed, though I occasionally availed myself of the soft-serve vanilla shake.

Nowadays, I drink beer and iced tea (unsweet) and coffee. The occasional bourbon rocks. Wouldn't touch a soda water for nothing but dire, life-threatening thirst. That stuff is so sweet it makes my teeth hurt thinking about it. So...my mom won.

Except I learned late in life that she kept a case of short cokes in the garage, hidden, that she would drink while we were at school. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

This is a fun topic, I've enjoyed reading everyone's comments and memories! Cokes were a treat for us when we were kids, too. I think it was more a cost thing than a sugar thing though, as we always had sweet tea and kool-aid. We always had milk and that repulsive undrinkable kind of orange juice from the 60's-70's. They must use a different type juice orange nowadays.
Donnah, I remember having an almost identical experience as you wrote about, one day I was visiting some friends and she opened her cabinets and there were cases of cokes in there, I was amazed!
I raised my kids with milk and no-sugar added juice, with anything else a sometimes-treat.
Nowadays I love diet coke with lime once a day or so as a treat for myself. Alas, cokes were much better when they were in glass bottles. The coke picks up the taste of plastic or aluminum, blick. Extra lime to mask it! :)

I'm enjoying reading these too.

Two Words that describe everything, but aren't understood until you experience it.

"Sweet Tea"

A-FLOGGING-MEN!

When I was going to MOS school in georgia, most of my friends never had "sweat tea" Then, being in the south, suddenly they all fell in love with it.

Sweat tea OWNS!!! Though it's a major major diaretic. I mean really, it's actually worse than soda when it comes to "head calls"

WP..we should get together and go fishing sometime.

One of *those* memories I have kept so close to my heart is swiping a raw french fry before it hit the
cast iron skillet..(real FF's were only after we won a game, paid for by the coach..who in turn got the money from the parents ??..maybe that's how I made the All-Stars) ..and sweet tea does rule.

When other kids got shipped off to camp, I got shipped off to Georgia..and my Uncle's farm, and his secret stash of Mountain Dew. I got one on Sunday.

The only time we were allowed soda as kids was when the older ones went to the square dance at the fire hall on Sat. night. Mom, stuck at home with 4 whiny kids, would send us to the store for a 6-pack of Pepsi and we made pop-corn on the stove. We were only allowed 8 oz. of that 16 oz. bottle so we fought over who had to drink out of a glass and who GOT to drink out of the bottle.

Eight years old. When all I had to worry about was being old enough to go to the square dance, pop-corn, ½ bottle of Pepsi and whatever was on those 3 channels on the old black+white.

Being from 'Lana, I was raised on Co-Cola. When I was a kid, the Coke man would deliver Coke syrup right to your door and everyone used to mix it with their own seltzer water. When I was growing up, all Native Atlantans espoused an almost-religious loyalty to Coca-Cola; I can't tell you how many Pepsis I've seen sent back at restaurants, the customer politely saying, "I ordered a Coke...."

My disillusionment with this company began during the 80's when they came out with New Coke.

Then their cynically-saccharine, prozac-like "We are the world" advertising campaigns left a distinctively bad taste in my mouth. Coke bears a lot of responsibilty for the decline of Western culture into vapid PC-multiculturalism and mediocrity; it really is as though they want to send us all on a soma holiday. Just watch ANY superbowl halftime show to see a good example.

Sold my Coke stock years ago and been working on my Mom to do the same ever since. All the hometown companies seem to be going down the tubes: Coke, Delta, Home Depot, Turner.... Don't get me started!

Little Donnah may not have understood another factor in our limited beverage choices. Back then, teachers got paid once a month, and add to that, there was only one Navy allotment check too. With mortages being $50. and such, splurges were, well,...splurges.
Store bought drinks were as rare as store bought dresses, but I loved the ones my mom sewed, especially when I convinced her to make ones with the hems a little shorter :) I could pick the pattern, color, and fabric. No one looked better either.

Come on, Nancy. Dad had to sneak in Little Debbies. What cookies did we get that weren't made out of raisin paste? I think she must have read "Diet for a Small Planet" or something.

BTW, I loved everybody's stories. They were really charming.

oh yeah this is gettin good now...

So, TherealNancy, did you and therealDonnah scrap
about them CoCola's ?? Y'all are crackin me up now about this..raisin paste and homemade dresses...

Speaking of which, My Mama made me a Halloween costume once. She was much better at dresses than boys clothes, so my brothers and I were spared, although wearing the oldest's handmedowns was a plus (authentic hippie clothes).
The Halloween party was at Mt. Dora Christian Home and Bible School, and I wore a real red polka dot clown suit...polka dots were cool at one time, btw. I won the contest. I was 8. I WAS cool.

Try that Batman.

No, because we picked our flavors beforehand and neither of us ever chose a cola.

Came from a family of 9 kids growing up in Tallahassee. The only time we ever got carbonated anything was when we went camping and then it was "Chek" brand from Winn Dixie and as you say we had to put in our orders before mom went to the store. Even then we only got two cans for a weekend and that worked out to maybe 6 cans a year.
I still remember camping at Goldhead Branch State park in the late 60s. Us kids would always pull the change return on a coke machine cuz maybe we'd get back a dime. This one spat em out like a slot machine jackpot. We all got our grape sodas but were afraid to take any more of the money. We furtively drank those sodas in the woods and I rember they didnt taste very good.
Another time we all saved up ourr money from turning in soda bottles we found and sent one kid on his bike to ride a mile to the store and buy some RC. Going as far as the store was strictly forbidden and drinking soda that ahd not been bought by mom or dad was unheard of. We drank em warm in the woods and felt guilty as hell when mom came out to hang the clothes and we we hid so she wouldnt see us.

They were raisen oatmeal, and they're still my favorite.
When I go to McDonalds I still order orange soda.
My mom also made my maternity clothes,in fact, she made her own and those of her three younger sisters on that same machine. Then, she donated it to a Baptist mission church in Immokolee so the migrant ladies could use it.
Later, she made one of my granddaughters a little dress, but I have it hung on a wall as a piece of Art.
You know that Cracker Shack that was posted a while back? I saw the real thing. In 1963, we came came back from San Diego, and I rode with my mom to a place outside of Ft. Myers, but before Estero. (on a road then called S. Tamiami Trail) she slowed down, then stopped for a minute in front of this shack. It had vines growing over it and palmettos coming up through the porch. I ask what it was and she said it was her old house. When I was six I didn't say "damn", but I was thinking something equivalent to ...da-amn

is the Tamiami trail gone ???

It's now referred to as N.41, Cleveland Ave., or S.41. Rarely Tamiami Tr. around here