One of America’s many seismic societal shifts is away from church. Far fewer people attend regularly than used to. I suspect I help drive this trend from both sides of the fulcrum: I don’t attend church now, and boy howdy, did I attend it as a kid. As will happen when your dad is the musical director and your mother is … I’m not sure exactly what, but it involved a lot of piano playing and no taking the kids home. Wednesday nights — i.e., choir-practice nights — had you stuck in the building from the minute school let out* until bedtime, and of course you were there on Sundays for both services and anything else going on.
All of which is to say, I probably saw this trend — this particular exodus, if you will — coming. And if I did, as a kid, see it coming, I knew what to blame it on: The watery fellowship-hour Kool-Aid. It’s no secret that the Methodists frowned on alcohol, but did they have to come down so hard on sugar?
Maybe they were visionary and saw high-fructose corn syrup saddling up with trans-fats and nitrites and the other horsemen of the dietary apocalypse, but I’m more confident they were just cheap. Had I known more about my own future, I could have enjoyed the essentially tinted water more by closing my eyes and picturing myself drinking the stuff midway through the run portion of a long-course triathlon on a hot day, not from a styrofoam cup^ but from a waxy paper cup labeled something like HEED … and costing a lot more than their version of Kool-Aid.
______________
*or wrestling practice let out, or drama club, or whatever I could get involved with instead, so in that sense, the whole stuck-in-church thing made me a bit more well-rounded.
^which, unlike the non-churchgoing me, will long outlast the Rapture.
Gary Fabian almost 5 years ago
What happened to the $2 price suggested yesterday? Should have crossed out the $0.25 (okay, I can’t find the cent sign) and write in $2.
Bilan almost 5 years ago
Time for Frazz to change his bicycling circuit to include the hydration station.
Ceeg22 Premium Member almost 5 years ago
Lemon flavored water
sandpiper almost 5 years ago
Kid is up on contemporary advertising schtick. If product does not live up to ad, change ad. She’s selling the sizzle, and not the steak.
Ukko wilko almost 5 years ago
Just label it organic and charge five bucks.
DonLee2 almost 5 years ago
“Homeopathic.”
danketaz Premium Member almost 5 years ago
Might mention “Low Sugar” while you’re at it.
Pipe Tobacco Premium Member almost 5 years ago
Hah! That is indeed how Gatorade tastes!
Night-Gaunt49[Bozo is Boffo] almost 5 years ago
PostsFrazz17 hrs ·
One of America’s many seismic societal shifts is away from church. Far fewer people attend regularly than used to. I suspect I help drive this trend from both sides of the fulcrum: I don’t attend church now, and boy howdy, did I attend it as a kid. As will happen when your dad is the musical director and your mother is … I’m not sure exactly what, but it involved a lot of piano playing and no taking the kids home. Wednesday nights — i.e., choir-practice nights — had you stuck in the building from the minute school let out* until bedtime, and of course you were there on Sundays for both services and anything else going on.
All of which is to say, I probably saw this trend — this particular exodus, if you will — coming. And if I did, as a kid, see it coming, I knew what to blame it on: The watery fellowship-hour Kool-Aid. It’s no secret that the Methodists frowned on alcohol, but did they have to come down so hard on sugar?
Maybe they were visionary and saw high-fructose corn syrup saddling up with trans-fats and nitrites and the other horsemen of the dietary apocalypse, but I’m more confident they were just cheap. Had I known more about my own future, I could have enjoyed the essentially tinted water more by closing my eyes and picturing myself drinking the stuff midway through the run portion of a long-course triathlon on a hot day, not from a styrofoam cup^ but from a waxy paper cup labeled something like HEED … and costing a lot more than their version of Kool-Aid.
______________
*or wrestling practice let out, or drama club, or whatever I could get involved with instead, so in that sense, the whole stuck-in-church thing made me a bit more well-rounded.
^which, unlike the non-churchgoing me, will long outlast the Rapture.