Commentary: Let us pause to remember the lemonade stands of our youth on a summer day

It was a fine summer day when the past came rushing back, arriving at a street corner in the heart of Chicago's Old Town neighborhood. It came in the form of a lemonade stand and I could not remember how long it had been since I had seen one of these sidewalk businesses.

It had been quite a while, for sure, but seeing smiles crossing the faces of people who also noticed the stand, I realized that for generations of children now gone gray, the lemonade stand is a wonderful touchstone, a very pleasant memory. And memory has the ability to offer a series of pretty pictures that can effectively erase for a time the pains and problems of the moment. What Democratic Convention? What election? We can all, given the chance, drift back to a time when we were kids and the world was trouble free and we could stand on a corner without fear or worry.

OK, then, let’s go back to what most consider the birth of the lemonade stand in New York City in the 1870s. That was when an enterprising business owner, name unknown, decided to sell cold water mixed with lemon juice on a hot Manhattan day, charging only pennies instead of whatever cold “refreshments” were available at nearby taverns for triple the price.

If you need a historical hero, I give you around the same time a 10-year-old Dutch immigrant named Edward Bok. Before he became a popular magazine editor, and his autobiography “The Americanization of Edward Bok” would win the Pulitzer Prize, he is said to have started selling lemon-flavored water at Coney Island in New York.

Within a few years, a New York Times article noted that, “This cheap lemonade business has come very much to the front in New York within the last year or two,” it said. “Before, if a thirsty soul wanted a glass of lemonade, on a hot day, he had to go into some bar-room and pay 15 cents for it. Now, at any one of these lemonade stands — and scores of them have been established — a customer can have a glass of ice-cold lemonade made before his eyes for five cents.”

This brilliant idea soon spread across the land with stands primarily run by youngsters. It was wonderfully simple: lemon juice combined with sugar and ice-cold water. And next to the stand, which was usually a small table, there was a growing pile of squeezed out rinds, fresh yellow proof that each batch was fresh.

In time, these stands were embellished with all manner of creative, artful touches, often special costumes and new flavors, even cookies.

There were some troubles, notably here in the late 1940s, at the stand operated by a girl, name never made public, in front of her suburban Western Springs family home. Unfortunately, accidentally, she did not wash the glasses she gave to her customers after they had been used. As a result, she contracted polio, as did four of her young friends.

Many states began cracking down on stands, citing health and safety concerns and forcing a business model involving permits and an understanding of zoning laws. Now most states still have regulations. But a new bill, SB 0112, signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker that went into effect in 2022, allowed for a lemonade stand to be operated by a person under 16 years old without regulation. Also known as “Hayli’s Law,” it was initiated after 12-year-old Hayli Martinez’s lemonade stand was shut down by local officials in Kankakee.

“Opening a lemonade stand can teach kids about entrepreneurship and responsibility, so it’s really a great opportunity for them to learn while making some extra money,” said State Senator Patrick Joyce, who filed the bill. “This new law will allow our young entrepreneurs to dream big without any hurdles.”

Naturally, having become a symbol of youthful summertime culture, the lemonade stand has been depicted in many entertaining ways, from Norman Rockwell paintings to shows such as “The Waltons” and “Family Guy.” And beyond selling, lemonade stands have inspired philanthropy, such as that through Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a cancer foundation based in Pennsylvania.

There is also a cover-the-waterfront Lemonade Day, started in 2007 by Michael Holthouse, a Houston-based entrepreneur and philanthropist whose vision is to “empower today’s youth to become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.”

Well, I guess running my long-vanished lemonade stand was empowering but I surely missed the entrepreneurial lessons. It was just fun. But the lemonade stand remains, at its purest level, a quintessential summer activity for kids, a powerful symbol of summertime and childhood.

Yes, they may no longer be practical, since we can now buy lemonade at any supermarket or most fast food joints and, of course, Starbucks. Yes, they may have become problematic, as many parents are reluctant to confront their sadly justified safety concerns.

There was a father standing near the lemonade stand I encountered in Old Town and we talked for a while about our childhood memories and he said he was happy to be sharing new memories with his two daughters, ages 6 and 11, selling and smiling with the fairly constant stream of customers.

So, I bought a cup. It was $4. I gave them $10.

“Keep the change,” I said. “For old time’s sake.”