vi-co... I never knew what it stood for

As I child in elementary school I remember being given two quarters from my parents to get a Vi-Co to drink with my lunch. It was always exciting. It was the highlight of most of our days, but up until today when I read our local paper I had no idea what Vi-Co stood for. I miss it dearly.

Vi-Co: short for "vitamin concentrate," a flavour concentrate that became both a brand and generic name in the province for chocolate milk. Discontinued in 1995. Purists insist chocolate milk since has never been the same.

Upon other research I found out that initially Vi-Co was an American brand name and was being imported, but a couple of years after its introduction onto the market, Co-op Dairies purchased the name and began selling Vi-Co in the grocery stores. With the passing of my beloved Vi-Co we are now bombarded with such milk that is strawberry and banana flavoured - gross in my opinion, although I've never tried and probably never will. I'm sure the banana flavoured milk tastes just like the penicillin I used to get as a kid. I'd always try to give it to my brother, he liked the taste of it! And chocolate milks no claim to be milk shakes and some have chocolate bar name brands like Caramilk and Crispy Crunch. Blech!

Give me a Vi-Co any day!

pace setters

So I was talking with some friends last night, one of which is from Newfoundland. We were talking about the Canadian lexicon and how it differs from the United States - some words are strictly Canadian. You know the type: toque, double-double and toonie, just to name a few. But we then got to regional terms, again for example the term bunny hug is pretty much a Saskatchewan phrase, as is Vico (if you don't know it, don't ask). Another phrase is gitch or gotch (which are terrible words, don't get me started), but in Manitoba it is ginch or gonch - they through in an 'n' for some reason! Port-a-potty is not an Ontario term, they call it a Johnny-On-The-Spot. It's not a parkade in Ontario it is an above ground parking structure. Okay, I'm going too far off topic now.

What I wanted to talk about here was the glorious wonder of Pace Setters. We all had at least on pair while growing up. You could have them in maroon with a yellow stripe down the side and the white piping on each side of the stripe. Or maybe in a baby blue with red stripes, yellow and green, black and red, the possibilities were seemingly endless. Alas, our good friend from the Rock had no idea what Pace Setters were! So being a good friend, I was going to look up this wondrous apparel and email it to him. But do you think for the love of God that I can find Pace Setters on the great inter-web?!? HELL NO! I'm a little upset and saddened by this. So I put up an image of the logo to warm most of your hearts. It's a little bitter sweet.

I could find jackets, fleece vests, curling pants, shirts... but not the illustrious pants. I feel old.