The
Rising Family™ succumbed to the temptations of limitless free carbonated
beverages. We visited the World of Coca Cola museum in Atlanta, Georgia, in
October. Just like its namesake drink, our stopover was bubbly and stimulating.
We were seeing the Mecca of Coke, the Cooperstown of Carbonation, the Base Camp
of the Boss of all Beverages…you get it, right?
Our
tour began by experiencing Coke’s 125+ years of history in an expansive
theater. A genial museum rep greeted us. He strode to the front and warmed up
the crowd for a slick historical video focused on the company’s origins and
history. The group then proceeded on with the museum tour.
For
us, the main event was sampling from over 100 Coke products. I discovered
my favorite foreign Coca Cola product was “Smart Watermelon” water from
China. I saw a Tab cola dispenser and that made me wistful for that brand.
I'll concede there was some tugging of heartstrings. Even 'ol sarcastic me
became lost in thought. The grainy video of the famous 1971 hilltop TV
advertisement featuring young people from all corners of the globe signing “I’d
like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…” still
resonates. (It was recently brought back into social consciousness by the
same imagery used in the series finale of "Mad Men" in 2015.)
Later, I detected a slight hush in the room when our guide told us we had
arrived in the vault holding Coke's legendary secret formula.
We
left the Coke museum with our bags filled with small can samplers and souvenirs
that we usually avoid. This time, we bought them at the memorabilia store. For
jaded tourist nomads like us, that speaks volumes about the power of the Coke
brand.
SpongeBob
Squarepants has been a staple of our TV viewing diet ever since I first
introduced the Rising Daughters to the irreverent yellow sea sponge when we visited Guam years ago. We watched SpongeBob in our hotel room while Marina
napped between beach excursions. Bikini Bottom has been a regular presence
on our living room TV ever since.
 |
| Courtesy of courant.com |
We
saw a poster advertising the new SpongeBob musical on Broadway in Times Square in 2018. The girls were intrigued, but we spent the money on seeing the Blue
Man Group instead. This year, fortune smiled on us with the opportunity to see
the SpongeBob musical here at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.
Hoppin’ clams it was a family-tastic evening. SpongeBob really rocked.
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