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Lemonade Stand

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Our city council declared June 19th to be Lemonade Day, and encouraged local children to get out there and sell lemonade. Our next door neighbors, ages 5 and 7, rose to the occasion and set up a stand in their front yard with the help of their mom. She baked cookies and brownies. They had pitchers of plain and pink lemonade. A glass of lemonade and a baked good cost 25 cents.

It was a hot and sunny day, and we were out in the front yard working hard in the garden. We were, of course, invited over to sample the lemonade and goodies. Husband paid them $1.00 for each of us, and the children assured us that we could come over for free refills. They came over to help us pull weeds in between customers. When they got really bored they played kickball in the driveway. By 4:00 they were done, and the stand was dismantled.

It was really nice to see all the people stop. The children were so excited when they had customers. There was a near disaster when their two year old brother tried to carry a lemonade pitcher over to our yard, presumably to fill our glasses. He likes watching us in the garden, too.

Did you ever have a lemonade stand? Describe a memorable summer day.

61 thoughts on “Lemonade Stand”

  1. Our stands were ore likely to offer Kool-Aid than lemonade. Our local government—Mom—subsidized the operation in the form of Kool-Aid, sugar, a pitcher, cups and a card table. We kept the proceeds and paid no “taxes”.
    Sort of like running a Fortune 500 company.

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    2. I worked under a similar benevolent government selling Kool-Aid to the locals from my front porch. Some days I made… well, almost a dollar. 🙂

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  2. Never had a lemonade stand. Don’t think they were a thing when and where I grew up.

    There have been so many memorable summer days, both as a child and as an adult, it’s hard to pick just one. Were you thinking specifically of childhood memories, Renee?

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    2. PJ, while we’re here, I’ll continue my riveting autobiography. I was right up the other end of Devon , in and around Barnstaple, the main town of North Devon. I’ve only been to Plymouth four times once being to see a musical called Dusty, shortly after the death of Dusty Springfield. I hate musicals, I mean, I really hate them. But Mari Wilson, who I’d never heard before, made a good job of singing Dusty’s songs and I put up with the rest of the show. I saw it six times, Jane came with me the first time, and on the way home I said, “She’s out-Dustyed Dusty”. I played some records and remembered that no one could.
      But meanwhile, Spanish. Trouble is here, sometimes people are actually living here, or staying in their new holiday home, before they realise. The main language is Valenciano. As far as I know it’s as near identical to Catalan as makes no difference. It’s got bits of altered Spanish, bits of French, and maybe bits of Italian in it. Spanish is the second language. It’s all very complex, the push and pull between the two languages over generations, and I don’t remember much of it. But for instance, the forty somthings in this village grew up speaking Valenciano, but I think wefe taught Spanish in school. Therefore can write in Spanish, but not Valenciano. The pharmacist, Maria Sanz, I think told me, she doesn’t try to write in Valanciano because you have to get all the accents just so, and they’re complex. Over the different generations there are various permutations. Currently the schools teach Valenciano, Spanish and English. Isaac picked up Valenciano very rapidly, and gibbers away like crazy with his friends, and translates for me occasionally, though doesn’t enjoy that. His English is kept up by playing on his Nintendo Switch with friends old and new in England and Scotland. Actually, I find it hard to knock that. Can’t believe I’m saying it. His Spanish is slower.
      I did consider learning Valenciano instead of Spanish. The Mayor would like the tiny English community here to do so, in fact offered free lessons for any of us who’d like them. I was already embroiled in Spanish lessons, and didn’t want any more. I don’t think it ever got off the ground. You’re really tying yourself to this one little area.
      So I’ve done four years of Spanish lessons, and I still can’t follow a conversation. My poor hearng doesn’t help, but I’m reluctant to waste money on hearing aids I’ll either break or lose. But I’m not afraid to meet with people, go into shops etc, and ask for things. I’ll tell you another time about our reasons for coming here. You can tell by now, how long THAT will take!

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  3. The closest I ever came to running a lemonade stand was when we created a “circus” in our backyard and charged neighborhood kids a nickel to see such wonders as our old tomcat wearing doll’s clothes.

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      1. My sister, Nancy. Timmy was a rough-and-tough fighting machine who took full advantage of being a tomcat in a world where free-range cats were the norm. Although he had a normal amount of cat dignity, Timmy allowed my sister to dress him up like a doll, plop him on his back in a stroller meant for dolls and run around the neighborhood with him. I was always amazed he didn’t rip her arms off, but he put up with it, only showing his opinion by the set of his ears.

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        1. Steve, the large cat that lives in our bedroom and bit my calf muscle, still not better by the way, is called Timmy. Maybe he was fed up with being bullied himself.

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        5. (meant to be a reply to Ben) Her health is good, Ben. Kind of you to ask. She’s concerned now because a former husband is dying, and it has become messy in terms of decisions about which treatments make sense for him.

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    3. My sister and I had a spur of the moment circus once. It was not a financial success, though, as most of the performers we rounded up were our friends who also constituted our potential paying audience. I recall vaguely that my performance involved acrobatics and a magic trick of some sort. Small wonder that was a one time affair.

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  4. My most memorable summer day involves a field of hay, a bale fork and a tractor and trailer. It was claimed to be the hottest day for 300 years in Exeter, 40 miles away. It was pretty hot where we were, too.

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  5. I helped with a burger stand (I think I told Steve it was hot dogs) to raise money for the school. The event was a huge, symbolic bonfire on November 5th, there were thousands of people there and it was fun. I probably got a burger, I don’t like them much as a rule.

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  6. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I did not ever have the experience of a lemonade stand, although I would have liked that. However, my mom, the miser, made all of our Kool-aide and lemonade without the required amount of sugar and waaaaay too much water. It tasted like colored water. No one would have spent a nickel on it. Or even a penny.

    I am back at home after the 50th HIgh School reunion. To my surprise, it was enjoyable because most of my friends from that era were there. One of them died about 10 years ago of cancer and heart disease, and 2 are pretty disabled now, but they attended. The rest of us are still on our feet. They became such lovely people.

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    1. My class will be 40 years next summer. But there are several people from the class that do ‘get-togethers’ every year. They’ve got another coming up in July. Everyone has mellowed it seems. And I mean that in a good way.

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      2. I don’t have a single friend from school. Even Jane Bayliss, the headmaster’s daughter at primary school. The same class as me. In grammar school, I think we were in the same class some years. Her parents t would come to our house sometimes, and Mum and Dad to theirs. Jane came with them sometimes, but we had nothing in common. I didn’t keep in touch with anyone, and doubt if I’d go to a reunion. I did eventually, slowly, pick up other friends. Hey, so don’t worry about me, right?

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        1. I also don’t have any friends from school. It’s interesting because my mother’s best friend she has known since she was five. I started making friends right away after I moved away from home. And I have many of them to this day.

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    2. I remember my folks coming home from their 50th with trinkets from business’ owned by classmates. Anyone in your class, Jacque, that struck it rich or famous or running the Fortune 500 business?

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      1. My class seems to have a lot of engineers and moderate achievers. My sister’s class is the one with all the stars. There is a manufacturing baron who invented floating docks and a tech star who knows all the California-based tech giants (he invented a program for basketball players that helped them change the arc of their shots and get more baskets). However, we stayed with some anti-t**** big wig Iowa GOP players. While we ate lunch a former t**** secretary of something or the other from Iowa, called our host to strategize.

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    3. Jacque, the Kool-aide you served is now what we in this senior citizen community are served as fruit juice. When I first got here the “apple juice” was pretty much 50 percent apple juice and 50 percent water. I ordered cranberry juice because it was what it claimed to be. Then they must have found a supplier for watery cranberry juice. Do you suppose the folks selling fruit juices have a special line of watered down juices for people living in places like mine?

      The only good part of being in the hospital the month of May was the fruit juice was real fruit juice.

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  7. I had many Kool-Aid stands when I was a kid. Like Bills, completely subsidized by my mother who probably thought it was a good way to get the kids out from under foot for a while. Because of these experiences, I always stop at a lemonade stand if I see one. Several times I’ve driven around the block to circle back. One of the neighbor girls up the street has done lemonade and face painting. I’ve availed myself of that a couple of times as well

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      1. It is a vividly flavoured and coloured powder to which you add lots of sugar and water and serve over ice. It comes in a variety of fruit fflavors. It is a children’s beverage popular in the 1960’s.

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        4. Thanks Renee. I wondered if there was something strange in it, you know, because of all the “former guy” supporters being told “Keep drinking the Kool-aid”……….

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      2. It is a non-carbonated, sugary children’s drink that comes as a powder and you either add just water if you buy the pre-sugared kind, or you add water and sugar.

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        1. Bill, thanks, but please don’t, I’ll feel guilty every time I see someone do it.

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    2. My dad’s favorite was green kool-aid. It’s what we still have at family picnics. Green has never been my favorite.
      I drink a lot of grape and Black Raspberry kool-aid. I even have my special thermos to mix it in. Add the sugar and kool-aid, add some water, mix, add a lot of ice, keep stirring, fill to the brim, open the spout and screw on lid, sip enough out to close it without spilling.
      Take it to the tractor.

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        2. Was there a black raspberry? I was thinking maybe you had different kinds in Minnesota than I had in Missouri.

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  8. It seems like I wanted to try a lemonade stand, but we’re down here all alone a mile off the road. Who would see it?

    FB is showing me 5 years ago we were visiting family in Charleston SC. That whole week was a really nice summer day.

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  9. From my childhood, a perfect summer day would likely involve sitting on a towel on the beach enjoying an after-swim snack and a bottle of fruit juice with my friends, all under ten years of age. My hands and lips would be purple and the pale skin all over my body covered in goose bumps from time spent in the cold water; no matter, I was in my happy place. It amazes me now that we were allowed to go swimming without adult supervision, but we were, and everybody did it.

    During my bachelor days between marriages, a perfect summer day might have been spent floating down the Cannon River in inner tubes. After a leisurely couple of hours, basking in the sun, swilling beer to keep hydrated, we’d inevitably all have turned pink from too much exposure to the sun. We’d usually end the day with dinner and more beer at the Black Forest restaurant in Minneapolis.

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  10. OT – Sarah Bellamy, artistic director of Penumbra Theater in St. Paul, has just announced that MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has awarded a five million dollar grant to the theater. This is incredible news, and the largest gift the theater has ever received. I am so happy for this small organization; they do such important and creative work in our community.

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    1. My cousin had a right-sided stroke – right side of the brain, affecting the left side of the body. One of the symptoms was that he had considerable trouble recognizing that he had had a stroke and accepting the physical limitations.

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  12. I think the naps were a good start.
    Sounds like he’s doing pretty well, right? No mobility issues?
    Mom had a small stroke last fall, but she’s 95 and has wanted a lot more care since then.
    I’m glad you’re both home; Congrats on that! Follow the doctors orders.

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    1. I found you had to eat them as you went. I think there are rules about it. None ever got taken in the house, in case someone else took them.

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      1. Nobody stole the flaked maize that I brought home from the farm was Dad was working on one time, pthough. They would buy it in bags for the cows, and I’d stand and eat it out of the bag. When I took some home and put it in a bowl, instead of cornflakes, it wasn’t the same. And nobody else seemed interested either.

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  14. Mud pies were a favorite pastime when I was a kid. I could spend hours mixing up mud to different consistencies for different things. We had a bush that left little berries after it blossomed that were not human-edible (but the birds loved them), which made for a good additive to the day’s concoctions. We had some loose pieces of cement in the driveway – I would pry one or two out and use those as “plates” to serve my delicacies… Mom didn’t mind the mud, but she wasn’t pleased about me taking out parts of the driveway (I always put them back, but she still wasn’t a fan).

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  15. I vaguely recall (mom) doing a lemonade stand with my sister.
    A favorite summer day would have been the first summer I was earning enough at my teaching job to take the summer off – 1972. I remember walking to the beach and exploring the coastline of Pillar Point Harbor, walked out to the breakpoint… sat and wrote a little. Ended up at the Mirimar Beach Inn for a beer or something.

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