More from Kooser - page 48
Beer Bottle
In the burned-
out highway
ditch the throw-
away beer
bottle lands
standing up
unbroken,
like a cat
thrown off
of a roof
to kill it,
landing hard
and dazzled
in the sun,
right side up;
sort of a
miracle
Beer Bottle
In the burned-
out highway
ditch the throw-
away beer
bottle lands
standing up
unbroken,
like a cat
thrown off
of a roof
to kill it,
landing hard
and dazzled
in the sun,
right side up;
sort of a
miracle
posted by Wendy Berrell at 12:35 AM
3 Comments:
I remember when, as a kid, we used to collect aluminum cans along the country roads. To have some fun, we would often set up little pyramids of empty beer and soda cans on the road's shoulder; then we would watch for the cans to be knocked everywhere by the backdraft of passing cars, truck, or, best of all, semis.
A semi moving at sixty miles an hour, and probably faster - these were boring country roads in the swamps of northeastern Minnesota after all - can scatter a ten-can pyramid a great distance.
This was probably 1978 or 1979. I think it was the last year or two that 7-Up used "steel" cans. Pretty much all the other soda companies were on to aluminum, but 7-Up was holding out, for reasons unfathomable to me as an eight-year old.
The semi went by, the cans flew every which way. The lone 7-Up can in the stack, in defiance of its peers, flipped, tumbled and rolled, and ended up standing on its rusty bottom.
At the time, this was just very cool. Wow! Check it out! It's standing up. It was a very rare possibility, but here it happen.
Thinking back on it, I can attach all sorts of significance to this event. Namely, could this have been the literal and metaphorical last stand of the "steel" beverage can in the face of the overwhelming advance of its aluminum brethren?
The soda was 7-Up, of course; so, perhaps, it had to be that way.
I know where you were, and I understand what you were doing. Meadowlands... The Rockets. Floodwood Polar Bears... what kids did to pass time.
It's cool that you have a memory of a 7-Up can standing tall.
I love Kooser's words on this seemingly mundane occurences and objects... You should really buy some of his work - as a creative person with rural midwestern roots you'd definitely appreciate it.
Love Ted Kooser's work. Had the honor meeting him last year; he's a friend of my husband's aunt who recently passed away. Kooser wrote an amazing eulogy for her.
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