Of all the things I miss from my youth, heading the list would be soda pop. Soda was at its best when it came in glass bottles, plucked from the ice water chest at Logan's Mobil. Plus, if you gave Logan's your soda business, Wally and Bill would patch your bike tires for free.

    Wally and Bill were the owners of Logan's, having bought the business from Pop Logan. They never changed the name, knowing folks would call it Logan's no matter what they named it -- people in my hometown don't take to change. Soda cost a dime. If you were in a hurry and wanted to take the bottle with you, it cost 12 cents. They would wave the extra 2 cents if you promised to bring the bottle back. But we were seldom in a hurry, so we'd drink the soda while sitting on the cooler -- the closest thing we had to air conditioning.

    If humanity has devised a more pleasant way to pass an August afternoon, that way has escaped me. Pedaling your Schwinn Typhoon to Logan's after a game of baseball, your throat scratchy with thirst, opening the cooler and surveying the rainbow of flavors -- Nehi Grape, Chocola, Mason's Rootbeer, Double Cola, Royal Crown, Orange Crush, and Big Chief. Plunging your arm deep in the icy water and pulling out heaven. Sliding your dime across the glass top counter. Wally asking, "Drinking it here, or taking it with you?"

Joy visits when we least expect it!

    "Here!" you answer. Arranging yourself on the cooler, then drinking deep.

    If you were quiet enough, Oscar, the gas station cat might settle in your lap -- Nirvana! The quality of any given place increases exponentially if there is a good cat in the picture. You should be so lucky to have a cat take a liking to you. Oscar made a good place even better.

    Joy visits when we least expect it. We're ten years old and we're drinking deep from heaven's bottle or life has bottomed out and Jesus drops in. It isn't that God withholds it. Joy is always looking to climb into our laps, it's just that joy needs silence and thus seldom settles into the lap of a noisy man. It's only when we stop talking long enough to whisper grace that joy has a way of rubbing against us, making its presence known.

From the book Home Town Tales: Recollections of Peace, Love, and Joy by Philip Gulley. (c) 1999 by Multnomah Pub., used by permission. Also available on audio cassette!