I remember a day Robert and I were out and about doing errands. On a side street near where we were headed was the most adorable lemonade stand. We pulled over and just had to have a glass of lemonade. Sam and Tina were the CEOs of their little enterprise, a brother and sister eight and ten years old, respectively.
That took me back to my childhood to when my siblings and I were always thinking up new ways to make spending money. I even passed some of them along to my own three daughters when they were old enough.
1.) My brothers shared a paper route. My youngest brother, kind of a scrawny little kid, always swore his right arm was longer than his left because of the weight of the heavy newspaper bag hanging on his shoulder.
2.) I used to hunt for golf balls that escaped into the ponds and high grass on the golf course at the Country Club. The pro shop paid a dollar a bucket and they reused them as practice balls for the golfers.
3.) Our neighbor, old Mrs. Simpson, hired me to walk her fluffy Pomeranian named Peaches. I used to feel guilty for taking money, though, because walking Peaches was so much fun.
4.) Weaving and selling potholders door-to-door was another favorite. My sister and I would weave them on rainy days sitting out on our front porch swing. As soon as the rain quit, we sold them to our neighbors.
5.) Our hometown was at one time, part of the historic Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail. One summer, the town drained the lake by the canal on the outskirts of town to recover a canal boat that had sunk so they could restore it.
Once the lake was drained, we spent a whole afternoon gathering mussel shells from the muddy bottom. After spraying the mud off with the hose, we painted them and sold them door-to-door as ashtrays, or table decorations.
6.) Our all-time favorite was selling lemonade from our own homemade lemonade stand. I remember half the fun was building the stand and creating our sign.
Years later, my daughters loved it, too —they sold lemonade all year round, even in the winter!
The Lemonade Stand
for Carrie, Beth, and Heather
(from a child’s point of view)
Get your ice cold glass of lemonade!
Hurry, before it's gone!
We made it just this morning,
see the table that it's on?
We promise that you'll like it
and there's sugar in it, too.
(Not like it was the other day
when mom and dad said, "Ewww.")
Get your ice cold glass of lemonade!
Boy, grownups sure are funny.
They smile a lot at little kids
who are trying to make money.
Thank you, Ma'am, thank you, sir,
you've helped us out a bunch.
(Sissy, let's go make some more ...
it's almost time for lunch.)
Get your ice cold glass of lemonade!
Only fifty cents a glass!
We've got to make more money
and we've got to make it fast.
Daddy said it wouldn't work,
that people wouldn't stop.
They'd hurry right on past us
and then they'd laugh a lot.
One last glass of lemonade.
This was so much fun!
Let's get this table put away
and then we've got to run.
Hey, Sissy, look, it's snowing!
But that will be all right.
Now we have money for presents
and Santa Claus comes tonight.
7.) Then of course, who among us didn’t hunt for empty pop bottles to return to the corner store for coins? I remember piling them carefully in our little red wagon and how they sounded, rattling and clinking together as I pulled them over the sidewalk bumps and cracks.
I’ve wondered at times whether our neighbors ever minded buying all the homemade stuff we peddled.
I know it sure meant the world to us …
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