Just enough of the signs peeked out from under the ceiling ofJohnny Lynch’s building next to Janie’s Pastry Shop and Bakery tomake Terry Pappas wonder what else could be up there.

In about an inch of space between the ceiling and the wall,words describing orange soda were visible. It appears from insidethe building that metal soda signs may have been used as a liningabove the ceiling and under the roof.

Pappas, who has been involved in a number of downtown buildingrenovations, knew there was a possibility that if there were intactsigns up there, they could be decades old – and worthsalvaging.

So Pappas, with Lynch’s permission, decided to do a littledigging to see if another part of Brookhaven history could beunearthed, just by peeling a couple of layers of roof back.

“This used to be a bottling company,” he said, explaining thatCheerio Cola, which became RC Cola and later Nehi, used to behoused in that building.

“You can go spend money and get old drink signs and get olddrink signs,” he said. “But the fact that these came from righthere makes them more interesting.”

So Pappas got some workers from Monroe Roofing and Sheet metalto dig under what they had thought was just a rubber roof at thetop of the building, starting with a small piece of the cornerwhere the signs were visible. After the first layer, however, theydiscovered a tar and gravel layer.

A little further in the excavation, it appeared that the piecesof sign that were visible from inside the building were just that -pieces of sign. Pappas had the men pull out three that fit togetherto form an ad sign for Dub-L-Valu, “King of Orange Drinks.”

Pappas said he’s spoken to Brookhaven residents that rememberwhen the orange soda went for five cents in the 1950s, and thatlocal memorabilia collector Carroll Montgomery has a Dub-L-Valubottle from the same time.

“There are other pieces up there,” Pappas said. “We don’t reallyknow what was up there, and when we went looking, we didn’t realizethere would be that many layers of roof.”

And during all the downtown renovations, Pappas said many piecesof yesteryear have turned up. He has a collection of all thedifferent things that have surfaced during the constructions andplans to donate it to the Lincoln County Historical andGenealogical Society and B’nai Shalom Jewish Museum.

Many of the pieces of Brookhaven history that have been savedhave come from places where rats have stowed them away, and onefind was particularly interesting.

“We pulled out a leather wallet with a Social Security card andbusiness cards from the 1930s,” he said. “Then we found anundershirt and an overshirt in the same spot.”

Pappas said he was a little worried they might find the wholeman, a salesman from Illinois, in there, but that in the end allthey found of him was the shirts and the wallet.

There was also a place where apparently someone who enjoyed hisDr. Tischner’s would deposit the empty bottles in a hole in thewall.

But of the signs in the ceiling, Pappas said possibly if theroof is ever redone, that could be the time to try to excavatethem. But until then, if they’re all in pieces like the one thatwas salvaged, it wouldn’t necessarily be worth the cost.

Pappas will keep the uncovered three-part sign as a memento andas another piece in his Brookhaven history collection.

“This one’s going in my apartment,” he said.