We’ve finally reached a light topic,  about the history of bottles in my life, beginning at a young age and continuing right up to the present day.  

Timmy was one of my best childhood friends whom you've heard about.  He's the one who lived next door to me and where we slowly made our way, ending up staking our TV antenna on his property.

He's the one whom we teased every time we spotted a wad of toilet paper in our little river. It was flowing from the sewage pipe emerging from the bottom of the stone wall down from his house. 

Timmy was a great organizer and still is to this day. He's a retired Captain for his local small-town fire department. Possibly, his greatest accomplishment has been and continues to be his annual organizing of a spectacular and well-attended haunted house production for Halloween. 

Timmy received an unusual, however appropriate gift, for his favorite events. His best birthday gift was a red plastic box with Coca-Cola written on one side. There was an open side where a quart bottle was placed in a cradle.  

By tipping the bottle downward we could fill little paper cups and sell them at our neighborhood circus.  Coke was very popular so we could have made a lot of money if we’d listened to Mother explain the profit concept to us. It was math, a subject I just never grabbed. 

Instead, we just kept hitting Mother up for jingling change when we continued to charge 2 cents a cup, netting 16 cents per bottle,  which to us young entrepreneurs,  appeared to be a big handful of money.  The problem was that 25 cents was required at the store to buy another bottle. We conned my mother into making up the difference.

In between the selling and drinking of Coke, we had what could questionably be called a talent show. I think I was a comedian and did a little bit of singing which would go along with my performances these days.    

At other times when we were not making money selling coke, we went along the road picking up bottles which netted 2 cents per.  But our best, most exciting, fastest, easiest catch was to wade around the grass just below the town hall windows on Sunday after the Saturday night dances.  

When it stayed light later, we’d sit outside waiting for beer bottles to be pitched through the open windows.  There were some close calls, but no one got hit.  After we had collected all the bottles we could find, we’d hide them under a pile of grass.  

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Just a half-mile down the road from O’Dool's Store, on Birch Street, was the best spot to begin picking up bottles in the 1950s, netting 2 cents per. We estimated that distance gave the customer just enough time to pop the cap, and drink the bottle empty.  

Lucky for us, they’d pitch it out of the car window to the side of the road so there were seldom any broken bottles. It was usually soda bottles that sold for 10 cents. A bottle of beer cost 30 cents which was a lot of pennies, so the return may have been more than 2 cents.

Occasionally, we'd harvest a beer bottle or two, tangled in the wet green, and straw-colored ditch grass. Those were usually a result of someone having been able to sneak one or two out of the cooler, past the store owner, and out the door.

My friends and I tramped down and back, up a hill, canvasing both sides of the road. After loading our basket, a bran sack, or an old pillowcase 'til nearly full, we made a right turn onto the dirt road leading to our destination. 

It consisted of a path, a poor excuse for a road that shot directly off from Birch Street, with a slight upgrade behind the school’s wooden bleachers.

We continued on, between the back of the baseball scoreboard and the cemetery fence. Excitement grew as we neared the rear of our Grammar and High School. This extended to a yawning parking lot edged by a grassy embankment that briefly obscured our endpoint.

Our bottle cache sometimes had nice surprises. Two-stepping our way down the bank, we searched out a good hiding spot for the load we'd lugged in. Kicking around in the knee-high grass, we'd often discover someone else's concealed stash. We could scarcely contain our excitement as we quickly moved all the newfound bottles to our designated hiding place.

On Sunday mornings, we sweetened the pot by scouring the area downhill from the Town Hall. A direct aim out the windows on Friday dance nights provided us a plethora of beer bottles along the incline.

But, fair is fair. Too many times though when we went to add our new acquisitions to the hidden location, nothing was there. We felt around, waving our grasping hands through the grass. Someone else had found our total stash.

We had no alternative but to begin again. Monday, the small candy store, a hut-like structure would be open for us to cash in our meager cache. The primary object of this establishment was to provide confections for neighborhood kids.

We planned to run down at recess, get into line, and trade our 2-cent bottles for penny candy, 5-cent candy bars, or lifesaver rolls. If we scrounged together enough bottles, we could strut away with a soda or our favorite ice cream bar for an additional 5 bottles.

I didn't remember that we were permitted to go down at recess and get goodies. I also know when I was in 5th and 6th grade we could get candy at our other school.  But remember that was when I was on my doctor-directed 900-calorie diet. This must have been when I was in 4th grade, pre-diet age. There seemed to be more lenient laws compared to these days. Of course, the hut would have to have been USDA approved or FSDA and all the other letters that might be needed.

 We could shop there with our bottles anytime, any day, any hour, as long as they were open. We were never discouraged about the need for bottles. There would always be bottles thrown, sodas bought, and scavenged stashes stowed. Our unwritten rule was finders, keepers, in a small town in the state of Vermont.