COKE NOTES: A couple comments today add to our ongoing saga of
the Coke plant in Bradford:

Frances Cercone Evans of Marietta, Ga., tells us her husband Tom
Evans worked for the Bradford Cola-Cola plant from 1951 to
1961.

“In the late ’40s, Mr. Marshal LeVie came from Atlanta, Ga., and
purchased the Coke franchise in Bradford. Sometime in 1959 he sold
it to the Jamestown, N.Y., Coca Cola Co. When he sold it, part of
the sales agreement stipulated that Tom was to be guaranteed to
keep his part-time job until his college graduation.

“The franchise included a full bottling operation from cleaning
to bottling and packaging.

“It also bottled and sold other flavors such as orange, grape,
root beer and creme soda. The flavors were Coca Cola’s own
brand.

“When Tom left in 1961 (the year he graduated from college) they
were still bottling other flavors.”

James A. Gates of Bradford tells us that Mr. LeVie was “a good
boss.”

The bottles, he said, were stamped Bradford but came from
Atlanta.

“I worked there from February to July of 1954. The syrup to fill
the bottles came from Chattanooga, Tenn. The bottles came in
cardboard boxes which we took down to Graham’s Greenhouse for their
plants. It was down on East Main Street where the Toyota place is
next to the Children’s Home.

“Mrs. Northrup used to check the bottles to make sure they were
all right. Andy Pehonsky used to load the trucks at night.”

Larry Stranburg phoned to tell us the Coke plant played a role
in his life in the late 1950s when he had a paper route in East
Bradford. After he’d deliver the papers, he go in to see the
secretary – Mrs. Carducci, who would offer him a Coke.

RTS SPOILER: “Hate to be the bearer of bad trivia news, but as a
country music fan I MUST tell you the song reference in the
Saturday edition was wrong.”

That’s the word today from Tim Hoh of Johnsonburg.

“It was John Anderson who released the single (‘I’m Just an Old
Lump of Coal, but) I’m Going to be a Diamond Someday.’) Not Randy
Travis as listed,” he writes us.

TODAY’S QUOTE: “The First Amendment is the people’s pact with
government to take risks in the name of freedom,” said Ronald K.L.
Collins, First Amendment Center, 2006.