Nectar Of The Gods of the Seventies

Yesterday my brother was washing out a meatloaf pan and remarked that there looked like there might be rust forming in it. All I could think of was my Dad, and something he said years ago. I asked my brother if he remembered...

In the first house we lived in, we had a really old working refrigerator in the basement. I am not quite sure why, I guess as a backup. It was probably from the 1950's. One thing that I always remember being in this refrigerator were at least a couple bottles of ice water. There was no ice in it, it was just cold water, but my Dad always called it ice water. They were these old glass quart jars that orange and grapefruit juice used to come in, with metal screw-on lids. He would fill them up from the set-tub that was down there for the washing machine to drain into. I remember my Dad out mowing the lawn, and coming in the basement through the garage to grab a swig of his ice water. My Dad never wore shorts, in fact he never wore jeans! He was a college professor and always wore suits. His summer work clothes for around the house were an old pair of suit pants that were paint spattered and old short-sleeve button down shirts, also paint splattered. He wore an undershirt with the other shirt all the time. He must have been so hot out mowing the lawn in that get-up!

The ice water bottles eventually would get a ring of rust around the rims from the metal lids. We would be hot and thirsty too, and my Dad would offer us a swig of his ice water, but we recoiled at the rust. We probably whined to him that the rust was poisonous or something. I will never forget him telling us, "It won't hurt you, it'll just give you extra iron!" Being devotees of Bugs Bunny and Popeye, we knew iron was good for you!  I am pretty sure I would always try to wipe the rust off the rim of the jar anyhow, and try not to let my lips touch the rust! We trusted him, and of course we thought he was so cool we had to be just like him so we drank out of those bottles many times during hot summer days. I wonder how many parents now would let their kids drink out of rusted rim bottles? Hey, we're all still alive including my Dad, so it couldn't have been that bad, right? It's so weird, but writing this, I can almost smell our cellar and taste that damn water! It really was ice cold, and had a faint citrusy note to it from the juice that had once been in the jar. I wish I had a drink of that right now, even though it's cold and snowing out.