i do.
i don't know if every elementary school had a sports day, but our's did as with the other elementary schools on the sunshine coast where i grew up. it was one day, the whole day, towards the end of the school year designated to sports. relays and three legged races and such.
our school was divided into teams lead by the grade sevens. each team was named after an animal. i was a cougar. every year. except for the year i was in french emmersion and went to a different school. their teams were colours, and i was red. and, not to brag, and probably having nothing to do with my atheltic abilty, my team always won.
what i remember most about sports days were the popsicles. so many popsicles. popsicles for the winning potato sack race team. popsicles for the winning egg race team. i seem to remember that, at least one year, there was a contest for teams to build their animal (i.e. cougar) out of popsicle sticks.
and the flavour everyone wanted was root beer. there were never enough root beer popsicles to go around. they were like the pepperoni pizza of popsicles. on pizza days, you had to get there extra early if you wanted pepperoni. otherwise you were stuck with ham and pineapple, and sometimes, that just didn't cut it.
it is entirely possible that i am embellishing on this memory. maybe there weren't that many popsicles but as a kid, it seemed like it. when you're young, you do tend to exaggerate these things, like, in my mind, there were mounds of popsicles. MOUNTAINS even. mount everest sized mountains of popsicles. and you had to fight your way to the top of the mountain of popsicles, pick axe in hand, to the lonesome root beer popsicle perched on the top. and that was the prize. one root beer popsicle.
okay. that never happened. but can you imagine if it had? utter mayhem would ensue.
how about 'popsicle pete'? remember him?
i have tried time and time again to find a picture of popsicle pete. there are none (other than the original popsicle pete from the 30's). almost as if he never existed. like maybe my childhood brain made him up along with the mountains of popsicles at sports day. but i didn't make him up. he was real. i've discussed him amongst my peers and we all remember him.
FYI: google 'popsicle pete', and you'll come up with pictures of pete wentz.
not exactly the icy cool dude i remember.
the closest thing i could come to finding a picture of the tres cool 'popsicle pete' of my childhood, with his blue sunglasses and almost too pearly whites, was this one of my friend tara at her sister's wedding. she's not riding a skate board as pete always did, but she's moving so fast that she could be.
lightning speed even.
two and a half years ago, i was living and working in sydney, nova scotia at cape breton university. while on campus one day i went to the convenience store with a hankering for a frozen treat. i went to the frozen confections freezer in the corner to see what it had to offer, and what did i find in the bottom, but a root beer popsicle. i was beside myself. why, i hadn't had one of those since...well..who knows when? probably some hot june day after running 100 metres with an egg on a spoon. not only was it a root beer popsicle, but, the wrapper, had 'popsicle pete' on it. i savored every last bite of it and was taken back to a million hot summer days with mountains of popsicles. it was heavenly.
i was reflecting on my last root beer popsicle recently with some co-workers while at the office and we came up with some other frozen treats that we hadn't seen in a while. push pops for example. and white popsicles. where did our childhood favourites disappear to?
so, my friend amber took it upon herself, and called the popsicle company with our inquiries.
push pops are now only made in california.
white popsicles? nobody knows.
root beer popsicles:
I combined the information given to amber with some wikipedia findings:
according to wikipedia, 'popsicle pete' appeared around 1939, only to mysteriously disappear along with 'popsicle points' in or around 1995. he just skateboarded right out of our lives. just like that. without a trace. as did, unbeknownst to most people (myself included), the root beer popsicle, in 2003.
they discontinued my favourite ice lolly, appearantly due to lack of demand. that, i have a hard time believing.
there was no such explanation for the disappearance of popsicle pete.
"if you are in a store and you find a root beer popsicle, you should call and report them because popsicles only have a shelf life of two years..." the popsicle man proclaimed to amber (maybe it was 'pete' himself?).
i sat and lamented my loss for a few minutes until my mind started doing math subconciously:
i was in nova scotia in 2006.
they discontinued popsicles in 2003.
that means the last root beer popsicle i consumed was at least 3 years old. one year past expiry.
BUT
my root beer popsicle, as previously mentioned, also had the ever cool, and slightly pretentious, 'popsicle pete' on the wrapper, along with 'popsicle points' on the stick.
'popsicle pete' went into hiding in 1995.
2003
- 1995
-------
8
EIGHT YEARS?
THAT'S FIVE YEARS PAST EXPIRY!
SOMEBODY CALL THE HEALTH INSPECTOR!!
no, but really? an eight year old root beer popsicle? i'm almost proud of that. it was probably the last root beer popsicle in north america. or the world even. they don't have root beer in europe. they have sasparilla. and i doubt they freeze it.
the popsicle man (lets just call him 'pete') also told amber that if there was enough of a demand for a certain discontinued product (root beer popsicles...for example) in a certain area, then they could be persuaded to reintroduce them to the public but in that area only.
vancouver could have its own popsicle.
how cool would that be?
literally.
so what if we started a petition?
or a facebook group?
"if this group reaches 1,000,000 members, they will bring back the root beer popsicle"
a worthy cause i think.
so who's with me?
lets bring back a little peice of our childhood? and also a nice way to cool off on a summer's day?
and while we're at it...how about the original teenage mutant ninja turtles?
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