CANADA DRY GINGER ALE / bottled only

Whenever I see a bottle of Canada Dry Ginger ale, I think of my mother, but only when it's in a bottle and not in a can.

When she was younger and a good golfer, a hole-in-one at the 17th at Claremont Country Club in Oakland was her greatest accomplishment. While it's a short 3-par of only 130 yards, it's an uphill shot which she holed-out with either a five or six iron.

In those days, Canada Dry awarded such a scorer with a large case of bottled ginger ale. While it lasted, a bottle was included in the lunch I took to school. This permitted me to brag about my mother.

Years earlier, my grandfather also scored one on this same hole. While my mother's achievement was the result of skill, my grandfather's certainly was not. He was a terrible golfer who used a full driver on this short hole. His ball bounced off the out-of-bounds fence, ran through a green-side bunker where it glanced off a rake and then onto the green and into the cup, unique but certainly not prideful.

As the third golfing generation of the Jackson family, I scored my hole-in-one on the sort, downhill third hole of only 126 yards. I was playing with an old friend, Harry Stevenson, who, while not stingy, was certainly frugal.

His response to my shout I'd made a hole-in-one was deflating advice that now I'd have to buy everyone at the bar a drink. I had no insurance for that.

I wonder how frequently three members of different generations achieve what the Jackson family did? I'll take a drink of Canada Dry Ginger ale - only from a bottle - in belated celebration of this unusual coincidence.