RSSDew From The Mountain
Aug 10
Memories: All I've Got Left andrew's air force base, family, kickapoo joy juice, memories, mountain dew 6 Comments
The summer of 1965 found my family living on Andrew’s Air Force Base in enlisted housing. My daddy was a Navy medical chief. He was attached to a Naval air wing during the 18 months we lived there.
The living quarters were spacious town homes, 2-storied with a full basement. With it seemed never ending woods behind our row of homes. Andrews was great for the kids of the military men.
The base offered a scheduled shuttle bus that came into the housing area. For free you could ride to the movie theatre, the huge fishing lake, the swimming pool, recreation center, base exchange and hobby shop. The base, also offered little league with immaculate kept fields and a gym that was well equipped. It was the likes I’d never experienced in my young 12 years. To say it in a nutshell–a kid’s paradise!
To get to the base exchange you went down our street and turned left to a cul-de-sac. A long sidewalk passed between two separate town home buildings, then down 21 steps and across a 50 foot cement bridge which a creek passed under, some 10 feet below. All was surrounded by woods. Then up the steps on the opposite side and across the parking lot.
On the backside of the exchange was the package (liquor) store. It was here I came to know a summer delight I had never known before. Oh yes, summer always had other special delights. Watermelon, strawberry short cake, momma’s homemade Popsicles-- so many tasty things.
An ice cream truck also came through the housing area twice a day. Ringing it’s bell, it prompted kids on every block to come running to the sound carrying change they had pleaded from their parents. While this was my case right along with them, it was not my favorite summer tasty.
I would forgo the ice cream truck most days in lieu of walking to the package store. You might ask, “a 12 year old going to a liquor store???” Yep! The walk through the wooded area, across the shaded bridge allowed me to zero in on a beacon that housed my personal satisfying drink of choice.
In the package store were spirits of all types: wine, whiskeys, gins, vodka, but I had no interest in these. I headed straight for the pop machine. The kind you lifted up the top like a freezer, made your choice and (slid around a bottle race track of sorts) put your money in then pulled up your sugary delight.
So, my choice it was new on the market, a green bottle with the words Kickapoo Joy Juice with an accompanying picture of two hillbillies whooping it up. Today it’s know as Mountain Dew. I had always preferred Crush organe to Coke, Pepsi, or root-beer. At least until that summer when I found the smooth, sugary confection Kickapoo Joy Juice.
I would take my prize the short distance to the bridge, which every minute of the day was shaded from the hot August sun of Maryland, then sitting on the hand rail I’d sip slowly, looking at the creek winding it’s way through the woods. I would watch the suns rays as it found it’s way to the shimmering sections of water.
Each small swig was relished, but all the while trying not to make the last swig be a warm on. It had to be timed carefully so as not to be still chilled. I’m not sure if it was the combination of hot days, the cool surroundings and the creek below, but to this day it’s still my pop of choice.
The bottle label changed some years later, but to me it is still Kickapoo Joy Juice. Yes, it is perhaps a strange memory, but boy to live it then was a small precious gem during my twelfth year.
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