Pick me up and LETS GRAB ONE AT THE HOSPITAL

Feelin' tired, feelin' low?

Feelin' blue, feelin' slow?

Drink two Coca-Colas and call Dr. John S. Pemberton in the morning.

What? You say Dr. Pemberton is not listed in your physician's group? Who cares. He's as close as the nearest drug store, right next to the chips and dips aisle.

Does anyone remember taking coke syrup for a boo-hoo belly when they were a kid? Dreadful tasting stuff. My mother used to say absurdly, "It's just like Coca-Cola." Uh, no mom...it's not. But my family doctor did prescribe it. Over the counter bottle of brown stuff to sooth the wretching flu stomach. I guess it worked. I'm still here.

This ad is from the back cover of the April 14, 1934 Saturday Evening Post. It's tattered. Notice the tattering? I love it. All along the bottom it appears to mirror the ice cubes or perhaps an old tattered piece of lace. The black mold stain in the upper right corner? Not going there. Black mold. A friend's house is suddenly besieged by it. Long story. Nightmare. State Farm...of limited help. Perhaps soaking the house in coke syrup would help. I doubt it or State Farm might have mentioned it instead of trying to run as fast as they could in the opposite direction. Perhaps it's because though she lives in a state she doesn't live on a farm. Ahh...the fine print.. Gets ya every single time. Anyway...

Click on image to see mold larger.

Dr. John S. Pemberton is the inventor of Coca-Cola, originally called Pemberton's French Wine Coca and was pretty darn popular in Atlanta back in the 1880s. Dr. Pemberton himself was no fly-by-night tonic salesman.

"He studied medicine and pharmacy at the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon, and in 1850, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed to practice on Thomsonian or botanic principles (such practitioners relied heavily on herbal remedies and on purifying the body of toxins, and they were viewed with suspicion by the general public). He practiced medicine and surgery first in Rome and its environs and then in Columbus, where in 1855 he established a wholesale-retail drug business specializing in materia medica (substances used in the composition of medical remedies) . Some time before the Civil War (1861-65), he acquired a graduate degree in pharmacy, but the exact date and place are unknown." (SOURCE: Georgia Encyclopedia )

Pemberton's French Wine Coca was, according to Pemberton:

...composed of an extract from the leaf of Peruvian Coca, the purest wine, and the Kola nut. It is the most excellent of all tonics, assisting digestion, imparting energy to the organs of respiration, and strengthening the muscular and nervous systems." He explained that South American Indians considered the coca plant a sacred herb and praised its beneficial effects on the mind and body. With the aid of the coca plant, the Indians had performed "astonishing" feats, he said, "without fatigue." Pemberton then admitted that his coca and kola beverage was based on Vin Mariani, a French formula perfected by Mariani and Company of Paris, which since 1863 had been the world's only standard preparation of erythroxylon coca. (SOURCE:Georgia Encyclopedia )

In 1886 Atlanta introduced prohibition which forbid the sale of wine thus taking some of the ummmm...spirit out of Dr. Pemberton. Not to worry. He reformulated, dropped the word "wine" from the title, substituted sugar for the wine, and voila...Coca-Cola was born and the rest is history. Coca-Cola was once a product developed by a pharmacist, "served in leading hospitals" and is now simply another reason Americans look like inflated floatation devices. I'm just sayin'.

I'd sure like to find one of those old wooden boxes the fella is carrying. Lot's of little pukas to fill with what-nots. And I sure have a lot of what-nots around here and most of my pukas are full.

To read a bit more about Dr. Pemberton go to Television Advertising.

And no, there's no logic as to why I've posted so many Coke ads the past two months. They're just sort of there, staring back at me. Think I'm kidding? I've got an old National Geographic with a Navy Wave holding a glass of Coke smiling up at me right now from the floor. She's freakin' me out.