The Orange Julius

I've recently rediscovered the Orange Julius. I remember my parents making them for us as kids and then it stopped. I went years without a homemade Orange Julius. Why? I don't know. There wasn't a shortage of concentrated orange juice in America that I missed or anything. They just stopped.

Until...! I noticed that little round cylinder of concentrate in the frozen food section of the local grocer. For weeks I lazily pushed the shopping cart right by the frozen nectar of orange. The sight of which would jog my memory back to the wonderful drink of my childhood years. At one point I even thought out loud, to my wife and others within earshot, that having a homemade Orange Julius again would bring purpose into my life.

My wife, having enough of my weeks of inaction, told me to grab one and make it for us that weekend. The moment I put the concentrate in the cart a sensation of worry came over me. What if it isn't what I remember? What if by tasting it again after all these years I only let down my childhood memory? As an adult your childhood memories of "how things were" or "this was cool when I was a kid"  become more and more precious with the passing years. Every time one of these memories are "let down" by re experiencing them as an adult, another coveted piece of your innocence and imagination hemorrhages then dies.

Now you understand why I was worried. I couldn't afford to lose anymore of these memories to adulthood. Nevertheless, I pressed on. I don't recall how many days the concentrate sat in the fridge at home... two... maybe seven, but I finally got around to making the Julius. With, what I can only assume to be my great grandmother's 1950's made blender, I began adding the ingredients. One can of concentrate, milk, and water. Then a cap full of vanilla, followed by as many ice cubes you can get to fit in your blender. Then proceed to blend!

As I took my first drink my mind drifted back to those wonderful memories I held as a child drinking an Orange Julius. Then it happened! That memory, the one I was holding so dear, gained a foothold in the present. It was if a window opened between the memory I had as a child and the experience I was currently having. Both the memory and the current drink, I was guzzling down, held the same weight on the internal scale in my mind. I felt for the happiness for Orange Julius now that I did then. The wonderful childhood memory had now become a wonderful adult memory! My innocence and imagination were now safe for another day, until another memory has to once again be tested.    

Side note: My wife likes Orange Julius's too but not as much as me...at least not to the point where she's attaching memories to them.