As I’ve stated several times in these posts, I grew up in a small town in northern Arizona. With a population of around 2000 people at the time, it’s the kind of town where everyone knows everyone. I went to school with the same small group of kids from kindergarten until I moved away my sophomore year of high school. I don’t keep any kind of regular contact with any of those people and only recently ran into one of my old childhood friends by random chance. But outside of that I haven’t talked to anyone from that town in probably 25 years. Even my last interaction with Brandon, my best friend growing up, was about 16 years ago right before I was getting married. But I still think about a friend of mine named Carl. He was the very definition of a nerdy kid. Big glasses, into video games, characteristically nebbish and weak, not super athletic or coordinated, and just rather awkward. My friend groups changed and shifted several times growing up but it was always the same churn of kids being in a small town, so all my friends either knew Carl or were also friends with Carl. He and I lived fairly close to one another and would hang out a lot, mostly to play video games or watch America’s Funniest Home Videos. His family took me along on a trip for Carl’s birthday to Phoenix one year to go to a water park. It was a classic childhood friendship.
I think around 7th or 8th grade my friendship with Carl was put into a rather precarious situation. Carl’s dad’s name was Doug and he ran the local newspaper. As it turns out, Brandon’s dad’s name was also Doug. And wouldn’t you know it, Doug and Doug really didn’t like each other. I don’t know all the specifics of their beef or disagreements as it was mostly adult politics or whatever. I just know that tensions between these adults grew to the point where Brandon’s dad Doug (who used to go by the nickname “Pyro”) got into a fist fight with other Doug (Carl’s dad) right outside of the newspaper office in broad daylight and Pyro sprayed pepper spray in his face. After that, Brandon took a turn against Carl. He had also been friends with Carl growing up, but that was quickly cut off. I continued to be friends with Carl and unbeknownst to me Brandon wasn’t too keen about it.
I played a lot of basketball as a kid (not particularly well) and Brandon and I signed up to go to a basketball camp in Prescott, AZ as we had done the summer before. This was probably the summer after 8th grade. It was a week-long camp where we stayed at a local college in the dorms and played basketball for several hours a day all week long. I was casually mentioning it to Carl one day and somehow convinced this goofy, uncoordinated nerd to come to basketball camp with us even though he had little to no athletic skill. He went home and talked to his parents about it and signed up soon after. I told Brandon that Carl would be joining us at camp and sharing a dorm with us. That was over the line for him. He wrote me a note telling me that he didn’t like Carl (we were kids who were too afraid or incapable of telling each other our feelings in person). It stemmed from the fight between their dads. I don’t remember the specifics of the note but it boiled down to me making a choice; I could be friends with him or with Carl, but not both. I didn’t deliberate it that much. The choice was clearly Brandon. He was my best friend.
Carl still came to basketball camp with us and was completely unaware that I was suddenly no longer his friend. Not being Carl’s friend anymore is one thing, but the lengths to which i/we took to torturing him is unforgivable. We made his life a living hell that whole week. Looking back I am ashamed of how I acted. He walked into this camp thinking he would be spending a week with a good friend of his and instead got ridiculed, mocked, physically assaulted, tormented, and eventually shunned. About halfway through the week he started waking up early and leaving the dorm room before we woke up and wouldn’t come back until late night after we were asleep. I only saw him during basketball drills when I wouldn’t acknowledge him and sometimes in the cafeteria where he would eat alone. He existed like a ghost to avoid any kind of interaction with us. I’m disgusted when I think back to what I put him through that week. And when the camp was over and we came home I didn’t stop there. I continued to torment him as a show of loyalty to Brandon.
Carl lived right across the street from the high school where his mother taught English. Her classroom faced their house and one day she got a full view of me taking a bike out of their yard that probably belonged to his sister and then ghost riding it into the curb and leaving it in the middle of the street. Brandon was with me and I was showing off for him. We walked to my house and just shy of reaching my properly we were stopped by Carl’s mom. She drove up behind us and stopped in the middle of the street, got out of the minivan that she left running and came up to me to chew me out. She was furious, and being a parent now I don’t blame her in the least. She let me know I was reprehensible in her eyes. She told me she watched me with the bike and that I was to never ever come near their house again. She sealed the whole deal by giving me a big shove. Yes, she laid her hands on me and pushed me as hard as she could, causing me to stumble backward a few steps. She didn’t say a word to Brandon and we both stood silent and motionless through all of the probably 30 second interaction. Then she drove away.
When I got home she had called my mom and told her all about the bike incident and my actions at basketball camp. And that’s kind of where it ended. I never really got in trouble for it and I never really talked to Carl again. But I’m regularly haunted by this still. I consider this the greatest failure of my life. I forsook my friend at the drop of a hat because my other friend told me to, but even Brandon and I drifted apart not long after this. It was one of the first times the weakness of my character was revealed to me. Carl didn’t deserve the way I treated him and I will always be sorry for it. I don’t expect him to ever see this or know about this confession, and I’m not asking for his forgiveness because I truthfully don’t feel like I deserve it. I would just say that I hope he is well and I am forever sorry for what I did.
Well... with that somber confession out of the way, let's talk about this new root beer. Ramblin' Maple Root Beer is another flavor offered by the Ramblin' line of soft drinks which are produced by Monarch Beverages and bottled by Rocket Fizz, which is where i found this. I originally was introduced to Ramblin' Root Beer (classic flavor) back in 2016 on a visit to Winchester Farmstand outside of Hemet, CA. You can go back and read that if you care. This looks like the case where Rocket Fizz acquired the rights to reproduce this root beer because the previously sited website on my post now leads to a dead end. Indeed, even the website www.drinkramblin.com that is listed on the label leads no where. So i imagine these guys just aren't in the game anymore. Fair enough, but in my opinion i am glad Rocket Fizz stepped in and is still putting this stuff out because it's good to have a variety of root beers for both historical and posterity sake.
I like the label on these Ramblin' drinks. They are lively and have lots of color. This one has a real autumn feel to it, including the maple leaves that grace the bottom of the label. You'd think a root beer like this comes from Canada but it Monarch Beverages is situated in Atlanta, GA and even the label claims this is a product of the USA. The label also boasts of real sugar and natural flavors. Regarding the taste, i think it's no surprise that this carries a strong maple syrup flavor. And that's really all it tastes like. It's like a very thin syrup that you drink. Almost no carbonation to it and nothing else to really stimulate the pallet. Just maple syrup. It's not as heavy or assaulting as Ward's, which also has a strong syrup taste to it, but i'm not in the practice of drinking straight syrup so this just isn't really my cup of tea (even though it's a root beer).
My official review is that Ramblin' Maple Root Beer gets 4 (four) IBCs. Like Ward's and the classic Ramblin' before this, a score of 4 is the order of the day. These aren't "bad" root beers, but they certainly aren't good. Not even good enough for a middle of the road score. I poured some in cups for my kids to try and neither of them even finished it. They both had a single sip and said no thanks. So that's pretty damning if children don't even like your product considering that's like the core demographic. So like i said, while i'm glad this stuff is still around, some things may best be left in the past.
