When I was in college, I scored an awesome summer job with the Vernors Ginger Ale Company. Having been born and bred in Detroit, Vernors had always been my go-to drink. It was so popular in the city that it was used medicinally. Warmed up, it could cure anything.
Many years earlier, the best part of having my tonsils out was the unlimited supply of Boston Coolers—Vernors and vanilla ice cream. Funny thing though—no one knows why a Detroit drink got named after Boston. I was pretty bummed later in life to find out that in Boston, there’s no such thing as a Detroit Cooler.
When I applied for the job, they asked if I could drive a truck. Luckily, the summer before, I learned to drive one at an overnight camp. At 16, my job was to drive an old World War II truck around the camp, pick up garbage, back the truck into a dump, and throw the garbage into a big pit. The truck had a stick shift, and getting it back up the hill without falling into the pit was a real challenge. The only thing keeping me from plunging into the garbage heap were two large cement blocks which I was supposed to hit as I backed up. I had never driven a truck before or used a stick shift, so it was on-the-job training. Somehow, I never ended up in the garbage pit. Many years later, I discovered that all the other workers at at camp envied me because I was the only kid who had a vehicle to drive.
So when the hiring supervisor at Vernors asked if I could drive a truck, I proudly showed him my chauffeur’s license, which I had just gotten when I turned 18. He hired me on the spot and explained that my job would be to take over the routes of drivers on vacation. I would be driving all over the Detroit metropolitan area, from Rochester to Romulus. He assured me not to worry because there would always be a seasoned assistant with me at all times
On my first day, I learned that I wouldn’t just be driving the truck but also hauling cases of Vernors into various stores. Back then, all pop came in bottles, delivered in wooden cases. I wasn’t the biggest guy around, weighing about 130 pounds, but by the end of the summer, I was the strongest I’d ever been.
A quick note about the word “pop.” In Detroit, that’s what we called the bubbly, sweet stuff in a bottle. When I moved east, I learned others called it soda. There must be many names for it around the country. I still call it pop, and when I ask for it in New York City, people think I want an energy drink. Today, my sons and grandkids even call me “Pops”.
Having an assistant was true, but I soon discovered that they only worked in the mornings. Around noon, most traded a case of Vernors for a six-pack of beer. We spent afternoons sitting in the truck, or a park, or a bar, sipping Goebels or “fire-brewed Stroh’s”, Detroit’s favorite beer. The bars where we hid away, were dive bars before the term was invented. I stuck with Vernors and occasionally an ice-cold Coke. Driving around town was tough enough stone-cold sober, let alone after a a few beers. Besides, I was under age to drink, which really didn’t matter much in 1966.
Another challenge was that the assistants really didn’t know the delivery locations. This of course was before GPS and cell phones. So there I was, driving a big truck full of pop cases down the John C. Lodge Expressway. Driving on the freeway was easy, but stopping suddenly in traffic was a challenge—sudden stops sent the cases flying forward, risking broken bottles or us being crushed. I imagined my funeral, with people saying I was killed by dozens of bottles of Vernors. I feared that they might place the Vernors Gnome mascot on my gravestone.
We had to deliver the cases to the back of supermarkets, which weren’t the cleanest places. We had to take back empty bottles, often filled with slimy, creepy microbial blobs. At the time, I didn’t know the term microbiome, but if these bugs hit my stomach, I wish sure I’d be running to the bathroom. In the smaller mom-and-pop shops, the pop was stored in the basement, accessed by steel doors on the sidewalk and stairs. More vermin lived in those basements than in any other place in town.
One of the best parts of the job was traveling to almost every suburb and neighborhood in Detroit. Each day, I had a different route. One day I’d be driving by the mansions of Bloomfield Hills and the next I would be in River Rouge, one of the most depressing places I’ve ever been. Everything there was covered in soot from the nearby original Ford plant. The EPA didn’t exist yet, and no one had heard of a clean environment.
Driving that truck was prestigious. My friends were envious, imagining it was a cool job. The young ladies appreciated the muscles I was building. I even considered quitting the University of Michigan to move up to become a manager at Vernors, but my parents weren’t thrilled with that idea.
Today, the Vernors factory is gone. In 1967, the year after my employment, Detroit began to burn. Almost everything shut down, including the Vernors factory. Now, Vernors is made with corn syrup instead of sugar. Some private equity company bought it, changing the formula to make it cheaper. Diet Vernors is more popular than the real thing, to which I say, “Yuck.”
My summer job taught me more than I could learn in a year at university. Where else can you learn to drive a big stick shift truck, get strong enough to lift 100 cases a day, and navigate around Detroit? Whether it’s Dearborn, Ferndale, Melvindale, Grosse Pointe, or “downriver,” east side or west side, I can find my way around Detroit.
So next time you meet someone who wants to trade a case of Vernors for a six-pack of Stroh’s, give them a pop and tell them ‘Rob sent me.’
