Dr Pepper has started a campaign to be named the Official Soft Drink of Texas.

While this campaign gains steam at change.org [I believe when I tweeted about it earlier this week, it only had a few thousand signatures], an associate notified me about this picture.

Facebook, you see, had notified him that this picture was taken seven years ago today. I do not recall where those hats came from.

We were right to be celebrating. 

A few days earlier, Dr Pepper had announced it would shut down the iconic bottling plant in Dublin, Texas. 

The news broke early one evening. I was listening to my associate, Mark Watkins, anchor a newscast, and he mentioned that Dublin Dr Pepper would be no more.

I didn’t really spend much time in the newsroom because one of my favorite activities is being left alone, but I rushed in that very day to ask Mark if he wanted to go halfsies on some Dublin Dr Pepper before it went extinct.

We were expecting a spike in the price of Dublin Dr Pepper commodities, so we had to act fast. We bought several six-packs online before the news had hit whichever store we bought the soda from.

A few days later, our shipment arrived at the station.

I vaguely remember asking our producer, Natalie, to come in from the studio to take that picture. I also vaguely remember her asking what goes on in that newsroom that we were dancing with Dr Pepper.

We were breaking the story about Dublin Dr Pepper disappearing for all eternity. That’s what.

But it hasn’t disappeared. Mark sent an email with that first picture today, prompting me to go lookin’ for my share. It’s possible I was never a huge fan of Dr Pepper [only buying Dr Pepper as a collector’s item and never drinking it], so I found it in my liquor cabinet.

A competing petition has now been launched to prevent Dr Pepper from becoming the official soft drink of Texas because Old Man Pepper left Dublin behind.

In conclusion, I may start my own change.org petition to change the name of Dr Pepper to Dr. Pepper. Hashtag: Make Punctuation Great Again.

I just wish I still had those hats.