The Sunday Memory Drawer - Bottle Caps

If you're wondering about this picture, I will explain. You just have to wait a little bit.

As I personally begin one more season as a baseball fan, what better way to honor this than by devoting a few Sunday Memory Drawers to the sport? Bonding with friends and Dad over the wonders of the game. Recalling happy times in some stadium. Reveling in the microcosm of life that only baseball can provide.

Except today we're going to talk all about football.

Well, sort of.

Bonding with Dad?

Most definitely.

Oh, sure, my father and I had our shared baseball moments and I will chronicle them here over the next little while. At this very moment, I'm thinking about playing catch with him in the driveway. The typical Norman Rockwell portrait of father and son. With the baseball scooting away from me as my dad screamed..

"USE TWO HANDS!!!"

Yes. sir.

But, for some mystical reason, today I'm thinking about a joint project that provided one of the very rare times where Dad and I were joined lockstep with a single objective. In our little universe, it was Hailey's Comet. Translation: it didn't happen much. But this did. A united focus. A shared goal.

Collecting Coca Cola bottle caps.

Huh, you say?

I couldn't have been more eight or nine when I heard about this promotion dreamed up by the soda company. During the fall, they put out these grids for the local football teams, the New York Jets and the New York Giants. On each grid, there were spots for all 40 players or the complete roster of each team. At the same time, the now-retired Coke bottle caps had a picture of a Jet or Giant underneath. So, you'd glue the cap to the appropriate spot on the grid. If you managed to fill in a bottle cap for every player on both teams, you'd get a free football. For some bizarre reason, my father got behind this in a big way.

"We're going to get that football."

Okay. But, isn't this a lot of work? Wouldn't it be just as easy to go down to the sporting goods store and buy one?

As far as Dad was concerned, apparently not.

For the next two months, this was our mission. Working together to get the necessary bottle caps that would catch us that pigskin. We'd spend hours on the weekend sorting and glueing.

Okay, let me reel it in here. We weren't drinking all that soda. Back then, my father had two jobs. At night, he worked at the Connecticut die casting company he had been at since after World War II. But, for a spell, he worked mornings for his cousin's oil burner company. Delivering heating fuel to homes.

And lots and lots of bars and taverns all over the Bronx. All of them very willing to hand over to my dad their weekly cache of Coca Cola bottle caps. Which he brought home in shopping bags.

Basically, we needed just 80 bottle caps. But, to find the ones for the grid, we pretty much sifted through over two thousand of them. Our kitchen table was a disaster as we surveyed each and every cap.

"This is a Winston Hill. We already have ten of those."

"What did you do with Pete Gogolak? I can't find him."

"How come we can only find tackles and no half backs?"

It was nervewracking, because Coke actually had a deadline on the submissions. As the clock ticked and the days passed, we kept sorting and glueing and glueing and sorting. Miraculously, there was just one bottle cap that we needed.

New York Giant running back Tucker Fredrickson. We were convinced his bottle cap didn't exist. The lone blank spot on the two grids stared at us for about a week. So close to the football. So far from the football.

Until my mother got into the act. One day, she came home with a paper bag full of bottle caps, which she had coerced out of the vending machine guy at her job. She was obviously trying to help. Or simply put us and her out of our collective misery.

Tucker Fredrickson was the first one we pulled out of the bag.

From my father's reaction, I couldn't tell whether he was ecstatic or depressed. Had he wanted to be the one to triumphantly pull Tucker Fredrickson out of his magic hat? Was he particularly frosted that my mother had delivered the goods? To this day, I don't know. But his half smile that day lasted with me for years.

With Tucker firmly attached to his designated grid spot, we headed up to the local Coca Cola bottler in White Plains. Gasoline expended, which also made me wonder why we hadn't simply walked five blocks to the sporting goods store. But, nevertheless, Dad proudly handed over the bottle cap grids. To the clerk who was mystified.

"How did you do this? Nobody else has."

I beamed. That's because nobody else has a father who delivers oil to about fifty saloons in the Bronx.

There was nothing special about the football. There was nothing to differentiate it from the football in the window down at the sporting goods store. But, this truly was our football. One that my father and I had gotten together. With a single focus. With determination. With pride. As one.

We went down to the driveway to play catch with it. As the first toss scooted away from me, I heard the usual refrain.

"USE TWO HANDS!!!!"

Dinner last night: BLT sandwich at Blue Plate.