Let us pause for a moment to remember the summer lemonade stands of our youth.

It was a beautiful summer day when the past came roaring back, arriving at a street corner in the heart of the old town. It came in the form of a lemonade stand and I couldn't remember how long it had been since I had seen one of these sidewalk businesses.

It had been a while, to be sure, but seeing the smiles on the faces of people who also noticed the stand, I realized that for generations of children who have now grown gray, the lemonade stand is a wonderful touchstone, a very pleasant memory. And memory has the capacity to offer a series of beautiful images that can effectively erase for a time the pains and problems of the moment. What democratic convention? What election? We can all, if we have the chance, return to a time when we were children and the world was trouble-free and we could stand on a street corner without fear or worry.

Okay, let's go back to what most consider to be the birth of the lemonade stand in New York City in the 1870s. That's when an enterprising merchant, whose name we don't know, decided to sell cold water mixed with lemon juice on a hot day in Manhattan, charging just pennies instead of the cold “refreshments” available at nearby taverns for triple the price.

If you need a historical hero, I give you a 10-year-old Dutch immigrant named Edward Bok from around the same time. Before he became editor of a popular magazine and his autobiography, The Americanization of Edward Bok, won the Pulitzer Prize, he reportedly started out selling lemon water on Coney Island in New York.

Within a few years, a New York Times article noted that “the cheap lemonade business has grown in New York in the last two years,” it wrote. “In the past, if a thirsty person wanted a glass of lemonade on a hot day, he had to go to a bar and pay 15 cents. Today, at any of these lemonade stands—and there are dozens of them—a customer can have a glass of ice-cold lemonade prepared before his eyes for five cents.”

This brilliant idea quickly spread across the country, with stalls manned mainly by young people. It was wonderfully simple: lemon juice mixed with sugar and iced water. And next to the stall, which was usually a small table, there was a growing pile of pressed peels, fresh yellow proof that each batch was fresh.

Over time, these stands have been embellished with all sorts of creative and artistic touches, often special costumes and new flavors, even cookies.

There were some problems, notably here in the late 1940s at the stall run by a young girl, whose name has never been made public, outside her family home in suburban Western Springs. Unfortunately, she had accidentally failed to wash the glasses she gave to her customers after using them. 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 mandating a business model that involved permits and an understanding of zoning laws. Today, most states still have regulations. But a new bill, SB 0112, signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and set to go into effect in 2022, allows anyone under the age of 16 to operate a lemonade stand without regulation. Also known as “Hayli’s Law,” it was launched 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 a great opportunity for them to learn while earning a little extra money,” said Senator Patrick Joyce, who introduced the bill. “This new law will allow our young entrepreneurs to dream big without any barriers.”

Naturally, having become a symbol of youth summer culture, the lemonade stand has been depicted in many fun ways, from Norman Rockwell paintings to shows like “The Waltons” and “Family Guy.” And beyond selling, lemonade stands have inspired philanthropy, like that of Alex's Lemonade Standa Pennsylvania-based cancer foundation.

There is also a seafront cover Lemonade Daylaunched 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-defunct lemonade stand was empowering, but I probably 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 summer and childhood.

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

There was a father standing by the lemonade stand I met in the old town and we talked for a while about our childhood memories and he said he was happy to share new memories with his two daughters, ages 6 and 11, selling and smiling with the fairly constant stream of customers.

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

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

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