Legends in the field of advertising – mostly huge companies and for well-known brands – still dominate our minds and hearts with wonderful ads, most of which stay in our memories, cherished for years and years, until they are considered classic and hailed as vintage. Sometimes the ads may be superb in excellent simplicity, or grand and sometimes a bit too spectacular to the point of being overdone, or absurd.
Coca-Cola’s ads are always just the right taste, as is the drink itself. The recent tv ads telling “Coca-Cola Stories”, short amusing anecdotes of celebrities and their sweet memories of the coolest drink on earth (for me), and that heart-warming 100 years of Coca Cola ad about an old man travelling far to meet his great granddaughter with the message: “Find what makes you happy. Do not waste your time on other things.” It was enough to make my eyes misty (yes, I can be such a crybaby).
It reminds me of childhood in Cabanatuan, with sari-sari stores still far across a busy street since we lived in a business district. Going with my babysitter to stores to get that precious liter or a 500 ml. bottle until I was old enough to cross the street by myself. Getting that 8-ounce bottle for lunch in school. Mama telling me we should drink Coke with seafood so I wouldn’t get a stomach upset. Same thing with loads of peanuts, roasted ones she used to cook during Holy Week when we sit through hours of Ten Commandments with nothing else to watch on tv. I think I must have heard her wrong. She told me to drink Coke whenever we eat seafood, or peanuts. My ear might have malfunctioned mid-sentence, and my mind embraced the idea to drink coke whenever I eat, period.
A bottle of ice cold Coke with Aling Tinay’s butong pakwan and garlic oil-laced binusa (cornik or chichacorn for us now) in high school. A glass of Coke with CASAA’s migraine-inducing cheese pancake (with extra cheese). A 12-ounce bottle with Beach House’s rice, barbecue and salted eggs with tomatoes. A chilled Coke in can with Rodic’s tapsilog.
Coke in hand when law school mates took breaks for cigarette at the BCF veranda. A celebratory coke whenever I got good grades in exams. Liters and liters during the bar review, and more congratulatory Coke when I passed the bar.
Life-altering decisions weighed and considered staring through straws and signature glasses with Coke bubbles rising up, consistent with my heart rate.
Mommy Vibes bringing me Coke in the hospital when I was suffering from post-partum depression because Gelai had to stay for eight days and Kayla was in tears whenever she visited. Debates with Hubby that I should stop, and him in resignation that I might die from Coca-Cola withdrawal, and may need a Coke IV while in coma.
Sunset Coke with Mama in her room, listening to the bubbling of her oxygen tank. A bitter taste of that gulp when I heard of Papa’s violent death, and the realization that I missed the chance for a final goodbye.
Everyday a gulp, a sweet memory alive.
Wait, I do not have a Coca-Cola story. I seem to have a Coca-Cola life.
sun*star.baguio.26jan2012.
