An All Sport kind of day

Around five o’clock the temperature in Iowa City was still 93º; the Heat Index was 110º. (Hello to you, too, humidity.) Needless to say, today was an All Sport kind of day.

Last Tuesday, during the last leg of my move back, my parents and I got off the freeway and stopped at a little hick gas station on US 69 south of Cameron, Missouri. After taking a piss, I scanned the drink coolers long the back wall and my eyes were immediately drawn to something unfamiliar: All Sport. The two rows of Fruit Punch, Blue Raz Ice, and Lemon Lime flavored Body Quenchers evoked my first back-in-the-Midwest moment: “Holy shit! I haven’t seen that stuff in years.”

I stopped drinking carbonated, caffeinated, and corn syrup based beverages after moving to California (other than my weekly ration of beer, I rarely drink anything other than water), so I honestly don’t know whether or not All Sport is available in the Golden State, but I don’t remember seeing it. (The label has a California CRV redemption mark on it.) So to me All Sport is a Midwestern thing, one of those distinctive products that, much like Spanish moss does for the South, signal your official arrival in the region.

Instead of buying an All Sport then, I bought a Coke made with sugar for a pick-me-up (it still tasted like battery acid). But my All Sport curiosity and nostalgia peaked today with the heat, so I walked up to Dan’s for a bottle. It cost 95 cents. Though not the best sports drink, All Sport was, as promised, quenching.