The Best Thirst Quincher

On October 2, 1965 a thirst quencher was invented at the University of Florida called Gatorade.  It was named after the school's mascot, the Gators.  The doctors at the university were researching to try to create a product the combat heat-related illness among their athletes.  The original recipe contained salts, sugars and electrolytes.  The original flavor was lemon lime.  The rights were sold to Stokely-Van Camp for $25,000.  That's not a mis-print.  The sale allowed Gatorade to move from the laboratory to eventually store shelves.  The orange flavor was later added to the lemon-lime.  I still remember those glass bottles and the taste of the original recipe!  It was so salty.  I read that the football players at the University of Florida threw up after drinking it.  It was so bad!  But it worked in replenishing everything that the body loses when exerting yourself in physical activity in high heat.

As I was in the garden yesterday, I was watering a bunch of soil that I had just planted in broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, beets, lettuce, bok choy, snap beans and kohlrabi.  It was hot.  I stood there with my thumb over the end of the water hose.  The cool water on a hot day jettedran out of the end of the hose in a full, fat stream.  And it reminded me of my childhood.  Like Captain Kirk from Star Trek, I was transported back to my youth.

We were young boys, the whole neighborhood was there in the backyard.  The end zone and sidelines were marked off by shoes and t-shirts that we had shed for the backyard football game.  We hollered and ran and sweated and tackled one another.  There was a lot of spitting and some loss of blood.  From time to time there were tears.  Soon someone would call "time out" and we would run to the side of the house where a water hose was coiled up and connected to the spigot.

We turned on the hose and let it run for a while.  This was important.  Even though you were SO thirsty, you couldn't just turn the water on and begin drinking as the sun had heated the water in the hose to temperatures approaching that of liquid magma.  After what seemed like hours, the hose finally yielded the ultimate thirst quencher, water!  It was cool and refreshing.  We drank until our bellies were full and put the hose on our heads to cool us off for good measure.  There was one rule.  No one could put their lips on the end of the hose.  That was gross and was forbidden.

Soon the line behind the garden hose ended and we got back to the football game.  Good times!  As I finished watering the garden, I was smiling just thinking of those good memories.  Since then, I think we've been taught that it probably wasn't a good idea to drink from a rubber hose.  We know better now, don't we?  But yesterday afternoon, I shook myself from nostalgia and thought, "one little drink from the hose for the sake of reminiscing won't hurt me, will it?"  And after making sure the water was cool, I took a long, satisfying drink from the end of the hose.  I made sure not to let my lips touch the end of the hose, being courteous, even though no one was behind me in line.  Water from a garden hose, the original thirst quencher - pre-dating Gatorade.