In 1945, when Dody
and I went to New York on our honeymoon, I took time out from
connubial bliss and show-hopping on Broadway to hunt for three
things:
T. S. Eliot’s “Old
Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” which I had read in Stalag Luft
III (and which I found and bought).
The Mills Brothers’
recording of “Paper Doll,” which I had heard before World War
II and admired (which I also found and bought).
Dr. Pepper. Which I
never found.
At the first restaurant
where I asked, “Do you have Dr. Pepper?” the waitress sad, “We
don’t have any doctors here.” At another restaurant the waiter
said, “We have Dr. Brown.”
I’d never heard of
Dr. Brown. It was a kind of soda water, the waiter said. Celery
tonic. At least he knew Dr. Pepper was soda pop. I ordered some.
Not bad. Now they make creme soda, too. I have it once in a while.
When I can’t get Dr. Pepper.
I first became acquainted
with Dr. Pepper maybe seventy hears ago in the city of my birth,
Houston, Texas. I thought it was a brand-new drink although I
later learned it was invented at a corner drugstore in Waco, Texas
in 1885 and first called a “Waco.” The company that bottled it
beginning as Dr. Pepper was started in Waco in 1891. It’s now
the No. 1 non-cola in the U.S. and though ubiquitous in Texas
is still hard to find in benighted places like New York City and
Los Angeles. (The reason I patronize some fast-foot outlets and
not others here in L.A. is that they have Dr. Pepper).
Before Dr. Pepper I
drank Delaware Punch with my James’ Coney Islands (everywhere
else they’re called chili dogs and James’ is where we bought them
in Houston.) Then it was always Dr. Pepper. And not just with
Coney Islands. With everything. The way some folks drink beer.
Back then Dr. Pepper
had a slogan.
“Drink a bite to eat
at 10, 2 and 4.”
So when I noticed a
high school and college classmate of mine had a wristwatch with
the 10, 2 and 4 in red, I asked him about it. It was a gift from
his grandfather, a former president and major stockholder of the
Dr. Pepper Company. He is still in Houston and we phone each other
regularly. He says he lost the watch long ago. Apart from that,
we never discuss Dr. Pepper.
I do that with another
old friend, who now lives in White Plains, New York. He’s retired
from, among other things, People Magazine. He writes children’s
books and the “Along Publishers Row” column for the Authors Guild
Bulletin.
In the Fifties we worked
for The Houston Post, he as editor of the Sunday magazine and
I as TV editor. It was a morning paper so we worked mostly days,
except Thursdays and Friday, when we worked until late at night
making up our Sunday pages. We had dinner together on those nights.
(The make-up men, who work nights in the composing room called
it “lunch.”)
On Thursdays we ate
at a Mexican restaurant. He had beer and I had Dr. Pepper. He
always smirked when I ordered it. He didn’t think it a seemly
drink. He disliked Dr. Pepper.
After I moved to Los
Angeles and he moved to New York we continued disagreeing about
the good Doctor. Now that we are connected by e-mail he taunts
me about Dr. Pepper several times a week and I pester him about
it. If we’d kept our e-mail exchanges we’d have a book.
I am the only person
in my family or among our friends who drinks Dr. Pepper. My older
son, the one who lives here in town, and his wife keep it on hand
just for me. He drinks Evian, she drinks Coke.
In the late Sixties
I did a stage adaptation of a novel of mine, “My Sweet Charlie.”
In it, one of the two main characters, an uneducated Southern
sharecropper’s daughter, expressed a fondness for Dr. Pepper.
The New York distributor sent a case to the stage company every
day of its short run.
Maybe they ‘ll send
a case to Senior Women.
David Westheimer lives
with his wife of 55 years, Dody, in the same Los Angeles apartment
they moved into from Houston, Texas 39 years ago. Their son, Fred,
is a Senior Vice-President at the William Morris Agency and his
younger brother, Eric, is a veterinarian. Succeeding generations
include five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. As a journalist,
David worked for Oveta Culp Hobby. At 83, David Westheimer continues
to write, and not just for Senior Women. His latest effort, "The
Great Wounded Bird," his recollections of World War II, winner
of the Texas Review 1999 poetry prize, was published last year
by Texas Review Press and may be ordered from Amazon
Books, where it is 1,458,159th on their sales list, from Barnes
& Noble and Borders
Books. He is a novelist and a retired Air Force Officer. He
can be reached for a repertoire of feigned curmudgeonly remarks
at: DWestheime@aol.com.
