Juice boxes, at least the ones from my day, are comparable to the Lunchables of the beverage world. They might claim to have so much vitamin C and contain “real” juice, but I doubt that is truly accurate. They taste too good. Plus, there is something about sticking a straw into your own personal juice container or successfully navigating a Capri Sun pouch so that you don’t spring a leak and are able to enjoy your [insert some catchy juice name here]. My co-worker promised a class of his Capri Sun as a reward for something and you would have thought he promised them extra credit and ten dollars. Juice boxes have a strange effect on people.
I admit, I have never bought this product on my own, but when given the opportunity to indulge in one or five of them, I won't refuse. And one is never enough. As part of teacher appreciation week, we got a bucket of childhood goodies from the administrators, complete with Gushers, Fruit Roll-ups, and Hi-C juice boxes. I slurped one down before I even set my papers and lesson plan book on my desk.
Juice boxes, especially the Hi-C or Capri Sun variety, take me back to T-ball and softball games of yesteryear. They were just the right size for a seven to ten-year-old and the assortment of flavors were awesome, everything from Berry Punch to EctoCooler, which really was slime-colored! For a few moments after the game, it didn’t matter how lopsided the score was or whether or not you got very much playing time on that particular day because at the end of the game there would be juice boxes, most likely accompanied by some other treat that is ripe for nostalgia, usually Little Debbie or Hostess products. Let’s take a moment to think about those, shall we? A juice box with a ho-ho. A juice box with a Hostess cupcake. A Capri Sun with a twinkie. I can do without the Hostess products, now that I realize they really are the epitome of junk food, but I still have a soft spot for the juice box.
I think Little League in itself is nostalgic. Real Little League. Not, the travel teams they have now that costs thousands of dollars and require a grueling tryout process, but real Little League, where the level of talent doesn’t matter, but just the desire to run the bases. Couple this with a juice box and you have a whole lot of nostalgia.
Mankekar’s article, “India Shopping,” discusses nostalgia for food and/or brands of food. There was an example from Sunita Gupta in which she described how consuming these products, brands, and glucose biscuits “[bring] back memories of home” (205). I am not looking for memories of home when I down a juice box, but experiencing something from the past. Mankekar believes that both food and a particular bardn allow a person to "[consume] particular narratives of the past” (206). A person can literally eat a memory of the past in order to somehow relive it. Gupta wants to relive the experience of mornings in her homeland, lingering over biscuits and tea. When I consume a juice box, I relive summer evenings spent on the baseball diamonds of the Mt. Prospect Park District.
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