Love That Sugar!

Two little girls and a trip to the store. What could be  more fun? The discussion was candy. My two young charges were all excited about the dollar I’d just given each of them. They perused the candy offerings at the local Dollar General and both decided on Mentos. One got strawberry and one got mixed fruit. A whole roll each for sixty five cents.

We didn’t have Mentos when I was a kid, but watching their pleasure as they each paid for their sugary treat brought to mind the candies of my youth. You knew that would happen, didn’t you? See if you remember any of these.

Candy Buttons – These came on a long sheet and were just that.Tiny colored buttons of candy on white paper. Probably our mother made us tear the sheet apart so we could each have a section of “buttons”. It didn’t occur to us dumb kids that they were all the same flavor. It was the color we wanted and often battled over. Then the dilemma of whether to pick or bite them off. That paper could get pretty slobbered up by the time all the buttons were gone if you chose the latter. I was a picker.

Jaw Breakers – Oh, yeah. Your jaw was in real jeopardy if you didn’t take your time with these little cement sugar bombs. You had to suck through the colored outer coating to get the whole deal going. Once that was done the real work began. How many times did you pull it out of your mouth to see how far you had to go to get to the point where you could clamp down and NOT break your jaw? I don’t know if they still make them this way, but in the center, and what they built the jawbreaker around, was a mustard seed. Anybody remember that?

Wax Candy – I loved them all. The lips, the mustaches, the little bottles with a pin dot of colored syrup in them. But my favorite was the orange wax harmonica kind of thing that really played music. Your lips got all sweet as you blew and the music, played badly by all of us, hardly had a chance after you took the first chomp of that wax. When you’d chewed all the sugar out of it you had a ball of flavorless wax to throw at your sister. Music, a sugar high and a cool saliva laced weapon. A three pronged wonder. It just didn't get any better. 

Big Hunk – Be still my heart! Every time I could beg, borrow or (yay) find under the sofa a nickel, off I’d go to the grocery store. It was a fifteen minute hike through several neighborhoods and a vacant lot in cheap flip flops to get there, but it was worth it. In roughly the shape of a ruler and almost as long, this was a vanilla taffy and peanut hunk of paradise. I loved them.Took a good long time to devour and I never shared. When they came out with one covered in chocolate I over the moon. But they may have cost a dime by then so I never got as many.

These candies are still around – except maybe the wax harmonica thingy. But the memories from childhood that are tangled up with them are not for sale – anywhere. I hope my little girls will have similar awesome memories of Mentos or any of the four million other ways there are to sugar kids up. They need that.  

So – what are your favorite childhood sweets and treats?

Image: Free Digital Photos