Kool Aid, Cool Kool Aid
where oh where is my Kool Aid
look for red mustache …

I grew up in a Kool Aid family.

There wasn’t a lot of pop around the house except at holidays.

We had Welch’s grape juice because my Mom believed in a weekly dose of Cod Liver Oil.

We would line up in the kitchen on Saturday nights and my Mom would set out two shot glasses.

One at time we would get a shot of Cod Liver Oil chased by a shot of Welch’s to cover up the taste.

Then Mom would refill the shot glasses for the next person in line.

This aspect of home wellness did not continue long into my lifetime, I was 8th of 11 kids and I think my Mom just gave up, but those shot glasses stayed in the kitchen cupboard forever.

For years when someone new to the family was directed to the cupboard to find a glass, they would find the shot glasses and grab one and ask, “What it is this for?”

And we would tell them.

I will also say that a shot glass of grape juice after Cod Liver Oil made me look at Communion with what is called a suspect animus.

Of course we always had OJ and Lemonade from frozen concentrate.

To this day, the rules for cans of concentrate are the same and I bet you can recite them.

Three cans of cold water for OJ.

Four and 1/3 cans of cold water for Lemonade.

I have never understood that in the century since the invention of frozen lemonade concentrate, no chemist has come up with a way to produce a product that needs the same three cans of water as OJ.

Doesn’t this call out for consistency?

Three cans of water regardless?

But no and forever we go one guessing at how much is four and 1/3 cans of water.

BUT I DIGRESS.

In the summer time the drink was Kool Aid.

Mom would unpack the brown bags of groceries and down at the bottom of one bag would be an assortment of Kool Aid packets.

Mom would get the standards of orange, grape, lemon lime.

I could not stand strawberry or watermelon.

I think because the goto drink for Youth Meetings at my church were those two flavors.

And at church it was an off brand Kool Aid Kool Aid kind of beverage that was provided, as I recall, with double the requested amount of water and half the amount of sugar.

That and how we all got red mustaches from drinking the stuff.

For me, the gold standard. the best flavor, Kool Aid at its finest was black cherry.

I find it hard to say why as I was no big fan of cherry flavor or cherry pie or cherry pop tarts.

We lived in the heart of farmers fresh produce stands and in the summer time, there were often bowls of fresh from the tree cherries and black cherries in our fridge but they weren’t on my list.

But BLACK CHERRY KOOLAID?

SIGN ME UP.

My Mom believed in Dixie Cups and the Dixie Cup dispenser.

To come in from playing in the what I was led to believe was the HOT summer of West Michigan (which would amount to a warm winter afternoon where I now live in the Low Country of South Carolina) and open the fridge to see a tupper-ware plastic pitcher of black cherry Kool Aid was the ultimate reward for playing outside in the hot summer of West Michigan.

I would take out the pitcher and reach up to the dispenser and pull out a dixie cup that I would fill TO THE BRIM and then standing there, with the pitcher in one hand, I would pour that Kool Aid down my throat in one or two gulps and slam down the dixie cup like I was Wild Bill Hickok in the Girl of the Golden West Saloon in Dodge City.

“I’ll have another,” I would yell to no one in particular and I fill up the cup again with the purest, bestest, coldest, sweetest drink on the face of this planet.

Black Cherry Kool Aid.

Over the years I may have lost the appeal of Kool Aid over all, maybe being a parent with 7 kids and dealing with the special staining aspects of Kool Aid had something to do with it, but I never lost the taste … or at least the memory of the taste of ice cold Black Cherry Kool Aid.

My kids will tell you that whenever any discussion of favorite foods and drinks took place in with my family, I would say, “This is good, but …” and the kids would answer, “It’s not Black Cherry Kool Aid”

Alas, while it is still made, it rarely shows up in stores and my kids only know about it from my stories.

Recently my son Jackie was getting ready to make a run to Walmart and he asked, “Need anything?”

And out of the blue I said, “See if they have any Black Cherry Kool Aid.”

He laughed and said okay but when he returned he had to report that he did look all over, but nope, no Black Cherry.

I said that I didn’t expect it as it was around much anymore.

Then my son said, “Dad, there is place called Amazon …”

I had not thought of that.

Then I did think of about it.

Then I thought, why not?

And I placed an order for 15 packets with the purest, bestest, coldest, sweetest drink on the face of this planet.

The order was accepted and I was told I would have my delivery in one week via the United States Postal Service.

I waited and thought about Black Cherry Kool Aid.

One week later I got notified that the package had been delivered to my mailbox!

I was at work and I waited and thought about Black Cherry Kool Aid.

I got home from work, took a walk with my wife and ended the walk at the mail boxes for our Apartment Compled.

Got out the key, opened the box and looked in … to see … nothing.

I checked my messages again and it stated – VERFIED DELIVERY – Left in buyers mailbox.

But it had not been left, at least, it had not be left in MY mail box.

So the process of tracking down the package has started.

The Mail Service here in the Low Country is, well, like the posted hours of restaurants, more of a suggestion.

That the mail carrier did track my package and beeped whatever tracking was on the package, the number of open slots that the mail carrier had to choose from was too much and the wrong slot got my package.

That means someone else got my Kool Aid.

Some else, disregarded my name and address on the package, even though I am just a few yards away from where they live.

Some else is mixing up and drinking my Black Cherry Kool Aid.

Some else in this apartment complex has a dark red mustache across their upper lip.

And I am looking for you.

To Be Continued …