I was riding over to the other farm (i.e. The Hill Farm on Tennant Rd.) with
Tim yesterday and on the way, we did what we always do, we reminisced. When we
came to the intersection of Ceylon and Tennant Roads, I said to Tim, "Hey, do you remember the Breakin'
Rock?" Of course he did. Every
time we ride together to the other farm, we always talk about the Breakin'
Rock. The Breakin' Rock was located on the Northwest corner of Ceylon and
Tennant Roads. By now, you all are no doubt dying of curiosity about why we
call this location The Breakin' Rock. I shall now commence to sate your burning
curiosity.
When we were kids, Tim, Len Hoffmeister,
and I would be usually riding our bikes back and forth to our places and points
in between. Len lived on Ceylon Rd so we always passed by The Breakin' Rock. When the three of us were together and riding
our bicycles together we would always stop at Heckleman's Sohio Station for pop
and candy. We then would get back on our bikes and head up Ceylon Road to
either Len's place or to the Tennant Road bridge to fish for suckers or
turtles. Most of the time we would hit the road before finishing our bottles of
pop. On the way, we would just be finishing our bottles of pop by the time we
would reach the intercession of Ceylon and Tennant Roads. However, on most occasions
we would make sure our pop bottles were empty by the time we got to the
intercession. As we neared the area, there was a rock along the west side of
Ceylon Road. As we passed it on our bikes, each one of us would throw our empty
pop bottles against the rock and they would shatter. In time, there was a big
pile of broken pop bottle glass all around the rock.
Now when we are kids and like most all
kids, we never stopped to think of any possible consequences for our acts and
we were no different. Looking back 40 plus years later, it finally occurred to
me that in the first place, the Breakin' Rock was right along the edge of one
of our farm fields. It is a wonder we never got any flat tires on our tractors
or equipment from all the broken glass that ricocheted in the field. Maybe we
did, but I cannot recall right at the moment.
Now the biggest irony and mystery to me
is that the majority of the time we had to raise the money to buy pop and candy
at Heckleman's. Do you want to venture a guess as to how we usually did that?
We would search all of the roadside ditches for discarded empty pop bottles to
cash in for 2 cents apiece! How's that for irony! We would break the empty pop
bottles that we paid for with the deposit refund on empty pop bottles we
scrounged. I guess the empty pop bottle enterprise was lucrative enough so that
it never occurred to us to save our empty bottles to cash in for more pop and
candy. I don't think we ever had to pay the 2 cents deposit to take the pop
bottles away from Heckleman's.
In those days since empty pop bottles
were worth 2 cents apiece, we would have to find 8 empty bottles to buy a
bottle of pop for 10 cents and a candy bar for 5 cents. We even had a penny
left over to put in the 1-cent peanut machine at Heckleman's. We usually cashed
in our pop bottles at TEACO. The owner, Clair Kittenger would always look askew
at us and ask if we purchased all of the pop at TEACO. Of course both he and we
knew we hadn't, but he gave us the deposit anyway, nice guy that he was. I
didn't realize until years later, that the way empty pop bottle deposits were
supposed to work was that when you purchased the pop you were supposed to pay
the 2 cents on each bottle, then you received the 2 cents deposit back when you
brought the empties back to the original place of purchase. Heck, we didn't
know that then. We just figured that empty pop bottles were like gold that you
found in nature, and then took somewhere to cash in. Apparently, most people in
those days didn't bother to take back the empty pop bottles to get their
deposits back because we found quite a few in roadside ditches. That was very
nice of them to toss them out since we got their deposits! Sometimes we would
take the empty pop bottles from our places if we didn't find enough of them in
the ditches. If it was winter and there was a lot of snow in the ditches, we
would always take our empty pop bottles from home.
Speaking of finding empty pop bottles
for deposits, the normal 12-ounce pop bottle deposit then was 2 cents. However,
there were larger sized bottles that paid a whopping 5 cents deposit! That was
an instant candy bar for the lucky kid who found one of those in the ditch! Of
course, those larger sized bottles were very rare indeed. They usually were a weird
brand like "Uptown" which
was like 7Up. I suspect now that they were used for drink chasers at parties so
they came in a larger bottle.
Unfortunately, The Breakin' Rock has
been long gone. I never knew what happened to it. Maybe one of the Berlin
Township workers picked it up and hauled it away because they got tired of
always cleaning up piles of broken glass from the ditch. More than likely, when
they relocated Tennant Road intercession several years ago, they hauled it
away. Now and then when I'm waxing nostalgic, I jump on my bicycle and take an
aluminum can of pop and head for The Breakin' Rock location. I have plenty of
time to finish it on the way. As I pass the area where The Breakin' Rock used
to be, I toss the empty can into the ditch. It just flitters into the ditch and
doesn't break or make a sound. Sigh... it's just not the same... The only brand
of pop that still comes in bottles these days is Steward's. One of these days,
I'm going to buy some and jump on my bicycle and ride past The Breakin' Rock
location and throw the empty glass bottle against the tree that is still there.
I'll throw it hard enough so that it will break against the tree. That still
won't be the same, but at least it will be closer than using an empty aluminum
can. Who said you can't relive the past? Well, at least part of it anyway...
