Letter: Longtime soda tradition at stake

Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2002 | 10:16 a.m.

I absolutely cannot believe that school district officials are considering banning soda pop from school cafeterias. Are these district officials actual Americans? Did they attend American schools in the '50s '60s and '70s and spend many happy after-school hours hanging out at the local soda fountain with their friends to relax after a hard day of learning?

Didn't they learn as kids that Coca-Cola was first introduced as a medicine, which is still used to this day to treat upset stomachs. I mean, honestly, how many kids will have to leave school early with stomach aches from having too much granola just lying in the pits of their stomachs, and then not being able to buy a carbonated soda pop to belch it up?

As kids growing up in America, we were given the freedom to choose for ourselves, and if and when those freedoms were denied us, well ... anyone who grew up in my generation knows what happened then. So go ahead and take away the rights from our children. Why not, the kids of today are wusses, they'll never fight back. (Or will they?) Let me ask you, if you were a kid, would you?

GARY SCHEIN