My life in appalachia koolaid

Are you a koolaid fan? Me-not so much.

A man down the road told Pap the thing he missed most of all while serving in the military overseas other than his family was koolaid.

When we were growing up Paul was a huge koolaid fan. His fondness for koolaid paid off for me because Granny saved the packets and sent off for a free koolaid tote bag. The bag had the Koolaid man himself on it and all around him were his friends or enemies (I could never figure out which) the Thirsties. I loved that bag!

Koolaid is still a popular drink in Appalachia today The Deer Hunter loves to drink it and the girls…well they dye their hair with it.

Tipper

Appalachia Through My Eyes – A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.

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21 Comments

  1. Favorite treat at vacation Bible school–Kool aid & cookies during recess. I think a lot of us attended just for that.

  2. My Dad loved Kool-Aid better than anything to drink. One Easter my younger sister ran out of eggs to dye. For some reason she placed the cups of dye in the refrigerator while they went to get more eggs. Dad cane in thirsty while they were gone and drank the cup of orange Kool-Aid.
    When Mama and my sister came home he said that whoever made that Kool-Aid needed to learn how to make it; that it was the worst stuff he ever drank.

  3. Koolaid for dying hair? I wish I had heard of that when I was a teenager, as it would have worked well on my cream colored hair.
    I must have been at least 15 before I had my first soft drink (pop). Mom made Koolaid when she had sugar to spare. Seems like orange was the only flavor she made.

  4. That was the go to drink for my mom to fix us, I never liked it much either. I never gave it to my kids so much either

  5. I’m not much of a Kool-aid fan, but it reminded me of a time I was on what we called a service truck, I’d catch power outages and blinking light calls, work on security lights ect.. I had a call that a families security light was not staying on at night, so the next day I pulled up in the yard to work on the light, the yard was full of Humming Birds the lady of the house came out and we talked about her birds, she had at least 10 feeders and countless birds, the air had a slight roar, she said her secret was strawberry kool aid and sugar mixture,and they come back every year.. I’ve tried it and they love it…

  6. Ken and Ron- Put The Blind Pig in your favorites and you don’t need to wait for an email. If it opens yesterday’s post then wait a few minutes and try again. That’s what I do every morning so I can have something interesting to read and some good music to go with my coffee.

  7. Back in the dark ages the girls in my school used food coloring for their hair. One poor girl wanted to be blonde but the yellow combined with her natural color came out bright orange!
    When my children were Kool-Aid drinkers. We got the Kool-Ade man pitcher. 🙂

  8. I like the sugar-free koolaid, grape is my favorite! Love how clever and creative those Pressley Girls are, using koolaid to color their hair. I think that’s great!!

  9. No email for me today either but with a few key strokes I found you anyway.
    I never was a fan of Koolaid. A big glass of sweet tea was more to my liking. Didn’t know you could dye your hair with it…maybe I’ll tell my wife to use it, has to be cheaper than L’Oreal!

  10. Tipper,
    Don’t know what happened but today
    I had no e-mail of the Blind Pig.
    It wasn’t in my Spam folder either.
    So, I went through yesterday’s
    post and looked under Recent Posts.
    There is Was! I bet Google might be
    mad at me for playing too much
    Blind Pig Music.
    Never cared too much for Kool-Aid,
    I like dopes better, but I’m
    a Coffee Nut…Ken

  11. Ever pour Koolaid right from the pack in your hand and lick it up? Did you wash your hands first? Ever put cocoa powder in your lip and pretend it was snuff? Did you let a little dribble out of the corner of your mouth and down your chin so you look like an old grannie woman?

  12. Drink Mix (uncarbonated)(same thing as Kool Aid) was a stable in Navy Food Service Operations. It was presweetened and came in packets that would make five gallons. It was called “Bug Juice” by the sailors and identified by color, not flavor. It was not uncomon to hear, “Man, Yellow Bug Juice. I hate yellow. Don’t they ever serve red?”
    An important attribute of “Bug Juice’ was, it covered up the inevitable taste of fuel oil in the water.

  13. Tipper,
    About the koolaid hair dye thing. My Granddaughter did that very thing.
    In her school, they ended up banning the children from dying their hair with koolaid…
    Poor kids, just can’t get a break on these innocent fads…The fads soon wear off. Not that I’m saying I really like seeing all these bright red streaks on everyone but it does bring back memories.
    I am thinking of the fads we went through when I was a teenager. Boys and sideburns and duck tail haircuts, shirt sleeves rolled up, cigarettes carried behind the ear. Packages of cigarettes rolled into a guys shirt. This was the tuff-guy look! Remember kids smoked on campus back then in high school. Before I graduated they finally got them to stop smoking there.
    Girls with crinolines so thick under their skirts that you could set a cup and saucer on the hem of the skirt almost like a table. Scarves tied to the side on every neck and everyone had a ponytail. That is until the “Poodle cut” came along. Then every girl got a poodle perm and cut…Most girls could not wear a poodle cut, me included…but I had to have one cause it was the fad. My face looked like a punkin’ with two inch tight curls all over my head!What was I thinking! I thought it would never grow out and I didn’t look as cute as I thought I would look like the other girls with the skinny faces! Lawdy! Live and learn! Sometimes!
    Then it was the bleaching with hydrogen peroxide in the summer, to get those blond streaks…I remember girls getting together to do that very thing. There was the instant tan thing, mixing baby oil with (I think it was iodine) and rubbing all over us and laying in the sun til we roasted like a weiner. Thank goodness I didn’t do that much!Just a fad! But a dangerous one! Who knew back then!
    Oh what a rebellious bunch we were, until another fad came along. Sometimes I think the teachers in our day were a little more lenient! One said in class one September after returning to school, “I never know exactly what my new students, are going to be wearing or what they will look like after a fad filled summer vacation!
    Thanks Tipper,
    That brought back the memories!

  14. Tipper,
    I betcha’ Deer Hunter would love
    Koolaid Pickles…
    I made a whole gallon a few years ago. Between all of us we finally got them down the hatch! Kids love them cause they are red and a sweet big dill pickle.
    There are many recipes on the Internet.
    All one needs is a package of Cherry Kool-aid, 1 Cup of sugar and a half-gallon of whole dill pickles. Empty the brine into a clear jar, stir in your koolaid and sugar stir until dissolved, return the brine to the jar of dill pickles…Put in the fridge and wait and wait and wait takes several days. You could slice the pickles in half, they will absorb the red color deeper in the pickle. We like them and kids love them…Fun for a July fourth picnic, to make ahead.
    There are many stories about the Red Dill pickles online. A southern tradition at bars, Mom and Pop deli store counters, and country stores. Goes along with the jars of sausages, jars of eggs, jerky, that you buy going out the grocery store. LOL
    I guess you have that red 40 dye in the koolaid. I didn’t get hyper maybe a little crazy but not like some of the children of todays hyper issues. We drank it by the ton. It was only 10 cents a package. A summer favorite!
    Mom thought cokes and soft drinks were more sugary than koolaid…Of course she didn’t put as much sugar in our koolaid and we got used to it…as long as it was icy cold!
    Thanks Tipper

  15. They no longer make my favorite kool-aid, Raspberry!
    The deer hunter and I have found a new product by Kool-aid. It’s in a little bottle about 2 inches high, sold near the Mio or Tang in the drink aisle. You add two squirts to a glass or bottle of water. So quick and easy and Good!

  16. I didn’t like iced tea when I was a kid and Kool-Aid was such a treat. Now it’s WAY too sweet for my taste but it was perfect then.

  17. I never was crazy about Koolaid either but my brothers and cousins were so Momma made a lot of it. She sent our packets off one time and got us a set of cups that were the shape of the Koolaid man. LOL. Never heard of using it for hair dye though.

  18. Not a Koolaid fan here. I think I liked it when I was little but wasn’t allowed to have it because of the sugar. They were always trying to keep me away from sugar….they did not succeed. LOL!

  19. That must be what I call the “pickin chicken look ©.” I remember back when we used to kill our own chickens. Daddy would lop off their heads and when they quit flopping, souse them in a big tub of boiling water to make the feathers easier to pick. Since the chickens were still bleeding a little, after the first few, the water would take on a red tint and grow progressively darker. The birds would go in white and come out red.
    When I first starting noticing young ladies with that newfangled hair treatment I thought “Now I’ve seen that before!” They must have been pickin chickens!

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