Baby Boomer Memory: It’s What The Astronaut’s Drank!
Oh yeah, when us Baby Boomer's were little kids and cuter than a bug's butt, we loved our Coke and Pepsi and Orange Crush and Mountain Dew (Hey, remember when Mountain Dew came out? It'll tickle your innards!).
But what we really, really, really wanted was a glass of Tang!
Now, Tang was formulated back in the 1950's, and in fact was first marketed in it's familiar (at least to us) powdered form in 1959. But we didn't exactly go crazy for Tang then. Nope. Oh, it was OK I guess, but it wasn't anything special.
Until 1962.
Then it not only became special, it became extra special and a must have! Why?
Because it was what the astronaut's drank and we ALL wanted to be astronaut's! But hold on just a minute there cowboy (Yeah, we all wanted to be Cowboy's too)...it wasn't exactly what all the astronaut's drank, it was what one particular astronaut drank.
That one astronaut was John Glenn, and it's hard to convey what a hero John Glenn was to little kids (and grownups too, for that matter). In February of 1962 when John Glenn went on that Mercury flight and drank Tang, well, what's good enough for the coolest guy in the world (and above the world) was good enough for us!
And it stayed that way for several years, probably at least through the first moon landing in 1969.
It's hard to say how many space flights I went on and never left that little Minnesota farmyard. And I'd dare say millions of other little kids did the same thing.
There's still Tang around these days and heck, I might have a glass or two for old times sake. I'm sure it's fine, but it just won't have that same thrill as it did when I mixed up a glass on that little metal kitchen table on that little farm, took a sip, looked up and said 'Wow, I want to be John Glenn someday'.
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