The Last Bottle of Adirondack Blueberry Soda on Planet Earth!

There it sits.  High atop my bookcase shelf, here in my office.  The very last bottle of Adirondack Blueberry soda on planet Earth.

For many years, this particular soda ("as refreshing as the mountains!") was practically the official drink of Tzad Aleph at Camp Ramah in New England!  It all began years ago (in the mid '90s) when Mike Pletman (who was Rosh Tzad Aleph at the time), came back from Walmart (or maybe it was Big Y, who can remember?) with the trunk of his car loaded with bottles of soda in all manner of silly flavors.  For some reason, it was Blueberry Soda that stuck.

One of the things that Mike is still known for at camp, to this day, is his founding of the "It's a Good Life Chug.  Blueberry soda quickly became very popular among the Good Lifers, but the love for it spread in the wonderful way that, only at camp, silly things can become the focus of enormous love and, dare I say it, obsession.  There were years when the Blueberry Soda flowed like water here at Ramah New England.  I am not kidding when I say that I attended Ramahnik b'not mitzvah at which Blueberry Soda was served.

But then, alas, Adirondack Blueberry soda became, for some reason, very difficult to obtain.  The stores here in MA stopped carrying it.  For several years I relied on my friendly contacts in West Hartford to buy cases for me, before each summer (thank you, Rosenbaum family!!) from one of the few supermarkets that still carried this delicious blue beverage.

Then there came a day when even those supermarkets stopped selling it.  My searches on-line, and my calls to the Adirondack company, bore no fruit.  Blueberry soda was no more.  Luckily, I had one extra case left over from the summer before, and for the past 4-5 years I have been carefully rationing out the few remaining bottles. 

Now, we're down to the final one.

I think we'll have to hold a "Good Life" chug reunion at the end of this summer — probably some time during the last week of camp, maybe even during the last Shabbat — in which those who have enjoyed this particular Ramah tradition will be able to come together and partake of this final bottle with me.  It will be the end of an era!