A SouthCoast Trucker's Unique Name

I was taking a call recently from a trucker who listens to WBSM, wherever he is in the country, because he has the free WBSM app. So, there we were chatting on the radio, when he mentioned Clicquot (pronounced "klee-koh).

"Yeah, since forever, they've been calling me 'Clicquot,'" he said, his nickname a throwback to the Clicquot Club Soda company out of Millis, Massachusetts that was one of the top producers of ginger ale in the world in its heyday, along with numerous other flavors.

We said our goodbyes but the word kept gently pushing me to remember back in my memories, when I'd spend the summer with my YiaYia, whose favorite beverage was that "gold-en gin-ger ale." She hardly spoke English, but her pronunciation of "Clicquot" was perfect.

This was at a time when I was about seven years old, and when the most popular soda brands from the SouthCoast to the North Shore were Clicquot Club, Polar, Cott and around here, Virginia Dare soda.

Do you recall Clicquot Club's joyful logo, Kleek-O the Eskimo Boy, which became their most successful marketing symbol? In those times, such characterizations were common, before people became concerned with political correctness and stereotyping.

There's one more thing that happened because of this memory. I saw snapshots of me walking up a couple blocks to the corner drug store. Inside, they held the chilled bottles of soda in a refrigerated unit that opened from the top by two floppy doors that were difficult for a young kid, but inside this frigid chest was my favorite, Clicquot Club's delectable Strawberry Cream soda.

To think, these memories were brought into my mind from a trucker calling in and just mentioning his nickname. I wonder what tomorrow on the radio will bring?