A Sweet Tooth Memory
Sometimes I reminisce on a wistful, childhood memory.
Nostalgia. Ever so simple.
As a youngster, I lived two houses down from The Corner Dairy. It was the neighborhood convenience store where people bought bread, milk, canned goods, and sundries — a little bit of this and that. The lure for kids was the curved, glass-covered candy counter. The counter stood a foot off the floor and was about four feet tall, a great eye-level draw for the tykes in the neighborhood. The four shelves were loaded with all sorts of penny items. The glass cover was always smudged with grubby little fingerprints from wide-eyed children deciding what to buy.
Living so close to the store, I was considered a “regular.” With pennies in hand I’d scan the case and pick out my favorites. One was a box of Lucky Strike candy cigarettes. Now banned in many countries and, for those younger than my generation, the candy cigarettes came in a small, paper box with ten white sticks tipped in reddish orange. My friends and I would play-act smoking like all our parents did while chomping a sweet, chalky bite each time before taking another pretend puff.
Another choice item to buy was the big, ruby-red wax lips. The lips fit over our own while our teeth gripped an attached tab. Once all of us got tired of making silly faces, we’d start chewing the lips into super big blobs of wax. With the bit of sugar almost gone, we’d spit out the disgusting, dribbly messes. It was always fun for a cheap laugh!
My all-time favorite penny candy, though, was gum. Dubble Bubble, Black Jack, Teaberry, Juicy Fruit, Chiclets – nope, none of those. It was Bazooka bubble gum. Although in my 70s now, I can still conjure up that wonderful, childhood taste. Sweet but not too sweet and the flavor would last forever! My friends and I would each hand over a copper penny and get that prized package. It wasn’t a long stick of gum or a hard-covered Chiclet but a thick, rectangular wad of pink deliciousness. And, the pièce de résistance was a treasured, comic strip inside.
Each of us would pop in a piece and with open mouth start chewing. We had a purpose, a goal, a competition. After a few minutes with a slightly sore jaw from softening the gum, we were ready for the contest. Who could blow the biggest bubble? I was pretty good at it. My trick was to take a deep breath and blow a slow, steady stream of air into the expanding pink sphere, all the while protecting it from the “pop” of a nearby buddy! But, as the bubble got bigger and bigger, a little fear crept in. Should I keep going or slowly deflate the sugar ball before it popped all over my face? Of course, the answer was…
Ever so simple. Nostalgia.
Do you have a sweet memory to share?
Bit by bit, that’s all she wrote…