Grape Crush soda from a glass bottle

When I was a kid there was a small motel on the back of the block my grandparents lived on. Even though my grandma's fridges were always full of stuff to eat and drink, my cousins and I would beg for 50 cents so we could have the adventure of going through the back fence, though the alley and into the parking lot of the motel to the soda machine to buy our own pop. It was one of those Coke machines where you put the money in and then opened the door to pull out your glass bottle of soda. I remember there was Coke and Sprite and Orange Crush and root beer but I always got Grape Crush and to this day grape soda out of a glass bottle is one of my favorites. It is sweet almost to the point of being sickening, but the carbonation smoothes it out a little and the taste reminds me of summer and being a kid.

Today I was at the grocery store picking up some things for dinner and I saw a 6 pack of Grape Crush in the glass bottles and picked it up. After I finished mowing the lawn I was sitting out on the deck reading a book in the sun and drank one of them. It tastes just like I remember it from that old soda machine back at the Anchor Inn Motel in Blaine. And with the sun beating down on my face and the sound of the neighbor kids playing in their yard I remembered what it was like when the weather was just starting to get nice enough to play outside in shorts and my grandpa would give each of us two quarters to go get sodas and get out of his hair for a little while.