We would drink cokes, several in a day, day after day. That is what all caffeinated, heavily sugared, carbonated soft-drinks were called. Coca Cola, Sprite, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Tab, Mr. Pib. To Joey and me all these products, all soft drinks, were cokes. Mom would say, “I'm going to the store to get some cokes.” “What kind of cokes,” we would ask. "Oh Probably Dr. Pepper." Yeah, we lived for the sweet carbonation and the caffeine hit. "Let's go to Collin's drive in grocery and get some cokes," I'd say. "What kind of cokes," daddy would ask. "I guess some Barge Root Beer." I would have my mouth set for a certain brand of soda-water. We would think about it and talk about it all morning long until our mom would get tired of hearing us. By noon she’d reach into her purse to give us a little money and shew us out of the house. We'd walk the block and a half to Collin's convenience store. I'd buy a package of cinnamon rolls and some Coca Colas, unless there was a sale on fountain drinks. Maybe I would get something colored blue or green. After the first gulp it would taste pretty nasty, but a guy had to explore what was out there. The cola frontier was constantly expanding. It was important to keep abreast.
On the last day of school year 1969 Joey was ten and I was twelve. Summer was here and shoes were off for three whole months. Bare feet against hot cement and asphalt took an adjustment in attitude. We lived in Goose Creek, a community of oil workers and refineries in East Texas. The feet were tender for a week or two after the end of school. With 95 degree days and humidity 85 percent, we'd run on gravel and shell driveways playing chase with neighborhood kids. Our feet would become hardened leather. The toes would spread apart, like they were taking a deep breath after being bound by school shoes for nine months.
One afternoon in the middle of June Joey and I were drinking cokes on the front porch. Strangers were moving into the house next door. Their arrival marked a huge change for Joey and me. Like Columbus finding the new world, we were about to discover tea.
Fran was from England and she was our new neighbor next door. She was beautiful and a grownup. Often we were invited over for tea and biscuits (usually short bread). I guess she was a little lost, living in East Texas. Her husband, Fred, was out on the oil platforms in the gulf for days at a time. Thousands of miles of ocean was between her and home in Liverpool. We would sit and sip tea, Darjeeling if you must know. This wasn't like grabbing a bottle of coke out of a cooler at the drive in. No, there was a proper way to make tea and Fran would educate us. Imagine, two little hicks from East Texas learning the Queens way to sip tea.
Fran was particular about her tea. We enjoyed the attention she gave the subject and the time she spent teaching us proper tea preparation. This was a serious woman in our company and at 10 and 12 years of age, we were infatuated. No, we were in love. She smelled different, exotic and "yummy" with green eyes and blond hair. She wore summer dresses with floral patterns and spaghetti straps over her shoulders. She was shapely and smart.
So the lessons in proper English tea began. “First the tea bag is placed gently leaning against the back of the cup, young gentlemen,” she would say with such kindness. Two teaspoons of sugar dusted the bottom of the cup. Most important, skim milk (just a table spoon) dripped in front of the bag and over the sugar. Hot water from Fran's tea kettle flooded the entire concoction almost to the rim of the cup. The tea would steep for a couple minutes. Then we mashed the tea bag against the spoon and cup to drain the last drops of tea. We were careful to mimic Fran's every move. There were smiles in the room and sips of tea and bites of biscuits.
As we learned about the Queen's tea Fran would ask about life in East Texas and America. We would sit in Fran's parlor watching the news on her TV and talking about America. There were demonstrations in the streets of Washington over Viet Nam and race riots in LA. Men, Americans, were going to be on the moon in September. Astronauts lived and worked just across Galveston Bay. The world was changing rapidly. Joey and I watched a lot of those changes on the TV in Fran’s living room in the summer of ’69. We sipped the Queens tea and told Fran anything she wanted to know about American. If we didn't know about it we would make something up. Fran and Fred were from Liverpool. We had heard of Liverpool, the Beatles and the British invasion. Our daddy listened to Hank Williams, George Jones and Merle Haggard. Next door with Fran we could sneak a listen to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who on the radio. 1969 was the best summer of our young lives but it was about to end.
One morning in late August, Fran and Fred began packing there things in boxes and shipping them home to Liverpool. The summer was over and Fran was leaving. She gave us her kettle and cups, the Darjeeling tea and short bread biscuits. We put it on the shelf suspended on our wall. It became a shrine to Fran. That’s where it stayed for many years. We never sipped tea again. We reverted back to East Texas ways, drinking cokes; lots of them.
Fran wrote to us often as we were growing up and we managed to write back (this is long before email). Years went by with high school and college behind us. I moved to San Francisco and wrote sometimes for Hollywood. Joey migrated to Chicago where he counted beans for a living.
A special invitation appeared in the mail not long ago. Joey and I met in New York and hopped a plane not long after the invitation arrived. We were heading for Liverpool. We had a date with Fran.
Standing in front of her house in England, suddenly no time had passed. We were knocking on Fran’s door like we were 10 and 12 years old again. That evening we escorted Fran and Fred to dinner. We sipped tea and spoke of America and our families but mostly we basked in the light of a fine woman who once lived next door to us in East Texas. Life can be wonderful.
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