those were the days...

that we didn't get to live.

Driving to Old Navy today, my sister, my mom, and I passed by these kids with a sign: Lemonade 25 cents. This is the stuff we read about in the chapter books of elementary school, that we imagined other people's lives to be. Growing up in Cupertino and Saratoga, I have never seen a lemonade sale. Ever.

I begged my sister to stop, so we parked across the street and walked back to where the kids (four of them) and their parents sat. We asked for three cups of lemonade and proceeded back to the car, sipping our lemonade.

Why don't kids do that more here? Is it because nobody walks? Or is everybody too filthy rich to ever engage in such "childish" endeavors? Do parents simply not have a Sunday morning to spend supervising their children's lemonade stand? Or are we so used to buying the lemonade in bottles that making lemonade seems of another generation?

It's not so much that that was necessarily the best cup of lemonade I've ever had, it's the principle of it. The fact that these kids were out there with their moms selling lemonade with a homemade stand made that lemonade delicious.

I went back after lunch with friends to look for them, but they had already closed shop. I hope they practiced their addition well and felt productive. I hope lots of people stopped by: not so the kids could have made more money, but so they could feel important in the passerby's life.