Oh Yeah! Kool-Aid Concussion

It was 1975. Hot, sticky, and the kind of summer afternoon where the air barely moved and even the flies seemed to give up trying.

My younger brother Adam and I were on the front patio, plastic cups of red Kool-Aid in hand. Not the fancy new juice boxes or pouches kids have now—just straight-from-the-pitcher, stain-your-lips, sugar-and-water Kool-Aid.

The red kind, naturally. I couldn’t tell you the actual flavor name, because back then, there were only two kinds of Kool-Aid: red and not-red.

Now, I liked to sip my Kool-Aid slowly, savoring it. Make it last. I’d already learned by then that once it was gone, there wouldn’t be any more until someone made another pitcher—and I wasn’t allowed to do it myself because I tended to leave more powder on the counter than in the container.

Adam, however, took a different approach. He gulped it down like he was a parched cowboy at the end of a cattle drive. One minute his cup was brimming, the next he was slapping his lips and looking around like something else exciting ought to happen now.

And then it did.

He looked at the brick wall of the garage, backed up a few steps, and before I could stop him—or even guess what wild 12 year old logic was clicking into place—he hollered, “Oh Yeah!” just like the Kool-Aid Man in those TV commercials and charged headfirst into that wall.

Now, if you’ve ever seen those commercials, you know the Kool-Aid Man crashes through walls made of cardboard. But my Aunt and Uncle’s garage wall was honest-to-goodness bricks and mortar, and it wasn’t about to budge for a scrawny kid fueled by a cup of red dye and a reckless sense of fun.

Adam hit the wall with a dull thunk and dropped like a sack of laundry. I just stood there with wide eyes and my Kool-Aid cup frozen mid-sip, trying to process what I had just witnessed.

Fortunately, my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Adam—yes, Adam got named after him; it was quite a story—were sitting on the porch swing and witnessed it. That right there saved me from a world of trouble, because had they not been present, I have no doubt whatsoever that I would have gotten blamed.

The prevailing theory in our family, after all, was that if something wild or weird happened, I was probably involved.

Uncle Adam rushed over and scooped up my brother, who was breathing but unconscious. Off they went to the hospital, and I got left behind with my guilt, the Kool-Aid, and a deep suspicion that I was somehow going to be grounded anyway.

Later, the doctor said Adam had a mild concussion. He was fine after a few days, although for a week, he’d look at the garage wall like it had personally betrayed him.

When we got older, I asked him what he’d been thinking. He shrugged and said, “I thought I’d go through it like the Kool-Aid guy.”

I nodded slowly and said, “Well, you didn’t.”

He paused and added, “Yeah. I think I should’ve used the screen door.”

And that’s when I was glad they never gave Adam blue Kool-Aid. Who knows what kind of ideas that flavor might have inspired?