I hate smoothies. To me, they don’t taste good. I’m an ice cream guy. But I love making smoothies. My routine at the Freshen’s Smoothie hut at the Campus Center never budged, until today. I’ve been mastering the art (because it is an art, indeed) of making smoothies for four years. From Maui Mango’s to Jamaican Jammers, my smoothies have touched the lives of many people from all parts of the world throughout the little openings of their busy schedules in the week.

As I was pouring a Strawberry Sunrise into a 16 oz. cup, it flowed out of the blender like a heavenly fruity river of righteousness, smooth enough to consider it a waterfall, during sunrise, but with strawberries. I was taken aback four years ago …

… where a younger, dumber, sniffling from a cold, foul-mouthed, and far less serious freshman version of myself, was pouring the same Sunrise into the same cup. It wasn’t a river of righteousness. It was a messy, clumpy mistake.

It was my first day on the job.

My first week on a college campus.

My first encounter with work study.

I came into work sniffling from a little cold, thinking I was the greatest thing since slice bread because I didn’t get thrown into the Dining Hall like most freshmen did for work study. I’m going to be making some smoothies, or some “smooth ass smoothies” as my best friend would say, working at Binghamton University’s version of the Freshen’s Smoothie hut at the same time.

I remember dropping everything. Thinking raspberries were blueberries, strawberries were raspberries, pineapples were mangos, and mangos were peaches, it was all confusing to me.

“I’m not a fruit guy. I hate fruits and vegetables and good healthy stuff like that,” is what I thought to myself at first.

“Now I got to make fruity drinks and shakes for people?”

So I had no choice but to treat this situation as another obstacle in life; an objective. It was ugly at first, dropping everything, spilling coffee, getting screamed at by co-workers and supervisors, but it sure was a lot of fun, because it is how I met a lot of people. So the only things I cared about were perfecting the smoothie at hand, and meeting new people.

This has been my formula for four years. I have learned a lot about myself and the world, and have been on many life adventures through the initial friends that I have met on those early, clumpy smoothie-making days. Through time and many life lessons, the smoothies got smoother and smoother…

… Until right now, as I pour a Strawberry Sunrise into a 16 oz. cup, with it flowing out of the blender like a heavenly fruity river of righteousness, smooth enough to consider it a waterfall, during sunrise, but with strawberries.

This is my Ode to the Smoothie. You have been the backbone of many life lessons. Now I pour you with the uttermost smoothness a man can offer.