Veteran Cans

Mom called the other day and said she and Dad were at a store that had veteran/military Coca-Cola cans.  She asked if I had them yet.  Nope.  So they picked up a set of the tall 16 oz cans for me.  One side of the can shows the Coca-Cola bottle in the design of the USA flag.  They also picked up a Diet Coke can with the same flag-bottle design.

The reason these are so important to me is because Dad served in Vietnam.  He's proud of it, too.  He has info about his division and where they served framed and hanging in their front hallway.

He received two Purple Hearts while there.  When I went by their house to pick up the cans, I asked him to get the medals out so I could include pictures of them in this post.

He also brought out some of his other medals.  He has more, but they are buried a little deeper upstairs.

This post may have been more appropriate on Veteran's Day or Memorial Day, but it also goes to show you don't have to wait for those two days each year to honor our military and veterans.  Any day is a good day for that.  

My thanks to all who have served!

Total Solar Eclipse 2017

It's almost here!!!

In case you haven't heard (haha), there's going to be an eclipse on Monday, 8/21/17.  It's the first total solar eclipse in the continental US in 38 years.  Everyone in the continental US will at least be able to see a partial eclipse and those lucky enough to live along the center line will enjoy the total eclipse.  And who lives along the center line?  Me.

They predict MANY thousands of people will be flooding Southern Illinois to watch.  I will be at my sister's house out in the middle of nowhere, away from all the traffic and crowds.  I should probably sit back with a nice cool Pepsi on Monday to enjoy the show, but it'll probably be a Diet Coke instead.  Why a Pepsi?

A few weeks ago I found this discarded can lying on the ground.  I was excited to see it was an advertisement for the eclipse.  It's a fun piece of memorabilia.

* Side note - this is the 400th post on this site.  Yay.

Popeye

Chester isn't too far from where I live.  I've been there many, many times.  It's a small Southern Illinois town with less than 9000 people that's famous for being the home of Popeye.  Or more accurately, the home of Popeye's creator, E. C. Segar.  Segar was born in Chester and lived there until he moved in his early twenties.

So I thought it was pretty cool when someone recently gave this Popeye Energy can to me.  The front of the can is covered with Popeye cartoon strips.

This flavor is Clobberin Clementine.  The other flavor available is Bruiser Blackberry.

It says it has natural caffeine and contains nothing artificial.  So of course I had to examine the contents to see if there's any
spinach in it.  None.

Also missing from the ingredients is Olive Oyl!

Peace from Texas

My daughter recently returned from spending a week at the University of Texas at Dallas attending a youth leadership conference.

When she returned, she was handing out souvenirs that she got everyone and to me she handed a heavy plastic bag.  I could immediately tell they were cans, but had no idea how many or what they were.

We checked out all seven cans of Peace Tea, each flavor sounding more delicious than the previous one.  She had even taken a picture of all seven cans in her dorm room at the college (seen to the left).



The flavors are:
1. Razzleberry
2. Texas Style Sweet Tea
3. Georgia Peach
4. Sweet Lemon
5. Green Tea
6. Sno-Berry
7. Caddy Shack

In the end, we both got something out of her trip to Texas :)