Lemons from Lemonada

Probably father Richard should have known better — suppose everyone did it? — than to let daughter Clementine Lee, 10, open her own lemonade stand in NYC's Central Park. However, she had a dream and he indulged her by helping bake the chocolate chip cookies and mix the drink. Unfortunately, after grossing under $10, they were hit with a $50 ticket by park police for selling without a license.

Although the ticket was voided (after the farce became public fodder), there is still something about this that leaves the taste of backward engineering, making lemons from lemonade with the help of a father. Clementine says she is not completely fazed and is ready to go back out with her pitcher.

Which calls to mind the question of what happens with a dad bringing lemons from lemonade. We have the undetermined fate of Ms. Lee. And on one hand we have Newsweek reporter Tony Dokoupil, who had an Edenic life until 10 when his father's drug dealing bust crushed the family, which he eventually overcame to a more interesting (and safer) place in life. On the other hand there's Nebraskan John Golden, whose dad got him smoking pot at 4 and who only now —at age 37 and with 11 more years to serve at a maximum security prison — is beginning to figure out how he might do better with his own four kids.

So no real answers to the questions of lemons and lemonade, but if we were building a brand, Golden Lemonade would be the most likely name, but in real life we have to say the most likely bet is on Lee's Lemons.