Lemonade Stands

Lemonade Stands. I ran one once. I may as well have taken a fishing pole to the Sahara.

Everyone has tried one. You actually probably made a few dollars off of yours though. Me? No way. I grew up in rural Idaho country. I could stand on my rooftop and actually only see one other house, and my cousins lived there. You've heard of this place, it goes by many names: the Boonies, BFE, the Middle-of-Nowhere. We lived at the end of a mile long paved road that turned to a gravel when it passed our house, and led straight to the mountains. There weren't any other houses past ours. We were the last.

So when, as young entrepreneurs, my siblings and I decided to set up a lemonade stand to take advantage of all the thru traffic, I can only imagine now what my mother must have been thinking. We gathered it all: flashy lemonade sign, folding table, chairs, cups, change, pitchers, a ledger, pencil, and the tasty beverage itself--a just-right mix of powder, water, and sugar. Once set up we waited a 1/2 hour and no cars came by. We convinced mom that she was parched enough to come out and buy a glass. An hour later one of us ran to our cousin's house and lo and behold our aunt just happened to be thirsty. We sold her two cups. The day wore on, the heat and wind scortching us. We started consuming our own inventory, so as to maintain our strength. Late that afternoon a man in a potato truck came driving by and was kind enough to stop and purchase a cup. I think, though that the lemonade was luke warm by this time. Hour after dragging hour we began to see our situation for what it really was--a geographical curse. We realized that we might actually have to earn our money by doing extra chores, instead of having it come to us easy, like our friends in town.

My wife never fails to stop at one of these lemonade stands. I was baffled at first. We would be driving along and she would see one in her periferals two blocks away. Invariably we turn around, drive over, swill a few cups of sugary water, leave a healthy tip, and move on. My gut reaction was to say, "You kids have it easy! Why, back in my day..." But why spoil their fun? They think money is easy beans now, but they'll have to earn it someday.