The Candy of My Youth

My mother kept a candy dish on the coffee table in the living room.
It was for adult company, not for children. Though I doubt she
kept exact count of how many pieces of All Sorts were in the
dish at any given moment, she did have an uncanny knack of
knowing just when my stealthy hand had been picking through
the mix for a yellow coconut piece.

“Have you been at the candy again?” she would sternly inquire.

“So what if I have, old lady -- what’s it to you?” I’d sneer back
(in my imagination -- in real life I just grizzled a bit and promised
never to do it again.)

I have no doubt that mothers the world over all have the exact
same objection to good honest delicious candy -- “You’ll spoil
your appetite for dinner!”

As a steadily maturing adult, I have exploded that particular
bugaboo entirely. I often start my noonday repast with a Mounds
bar or a handful of malted milk balls. Such a treat works like a
non-alcoholic aperitif, and I enjoy my salami/anchovy sandwich
with potato chips that much more. Before my evening meal a
generous helping of french burnt peanuts or Raisinettes gives a
distinct relish to my poached egg and ramen noodles.

But you’ll never convince a mother, any mother, that a Kit Kat
bar prior to the spinach souffle might entice the little nippers to
eat their veggies hearty.

And, at least with my own mother, candy was just plain wrong
on general principles because it brought me so much pleasure.
My mother belonged to that strait-laced generation that believed
happy children were either wasting time or sowing wild provender.
A dutiful sobriety was called for in children at all times.

Certainly wasting time was one of the main pleasures of candy
when I was a boy. Wayne Matsuura and I would sit on my front
porch, with jawbreakers rolling around inside our mouths, taking
them out from time to time to see the color gradually dissolve from
red to blue to green to orange. This seemed like absorbing work to
our picayune minds. Candy button sheets were another reliable
source of entertainment; you picked them off, one at a time,
attempting to get as little paper as possible with each button.
If not done carefully I’d have to spit out the paper pulp like a
watermelon seed.

Harry’s grocery on the corner sold miniature wax soda bottles
filled with colored sugar water. After drinking the liquid, I could
chew contentedly on the wax like a cow for blissful hours on end.

Though my tastes in candy were liberal and catholic, I never
could quite cotton to the many peanut-based candies around,
like the salted nut rolls handed out by ersatz Santas at Christmas
or the stash of peanut brittle my mother bought at Powers
Department Store to nibble on when she tried to quit smoking.
I prefered anything with chocolate and coconut. And marshmallow --
although after viewing one of Don Herbert’s “Watch Mr. Wizard” tv
shows where he put a marshmallow in a vacuum jar and pumped
out all the air, causing the marshmallow to expand to the size of
a basketball, I grew obsessed with the fear that I might someday
be eating a bag of Peeps and suddenly be sucked into the vortex
vacuum of a tornado and thus explode into sticky white pulp.

Bubble gum was exempt from my mother’s interdiction, since
there was nothing to swallow. I always bought the Bazooka brand,
because each wrapped piece contained a Bazooka Joe comic
panel on waxed paper. I fondly recall one panel where Bazooka
Joe is wearing a belt made of clocks and one of his sidekicks tells
him it’s a “waist of time.” When you’re six years old, it doesn’t
get much funnier than that.

Of course Halloween was my saturnalia of sugar -- all the candy
I could collect and carry; so damn the cavities, full speed ahead!
Back in the Eisenhower era adults at least had some idea of how
to celebrate the day with overflowing generosity. There were none
of those wretched bite-size bars or disappointing candy kisses that
are palmed off on kids today. No siree bob! My bag was filled
to the brim with full-size Hershey bars, homemade popcorn balls,
gigantic all-day suckers, caramel apples, big bags of M&Ms and
candy corn, log-size Tootsie Rolls, and hefty boxes of Dots or
Milk Duds. (Just writing about such wonderful sweet excess makes
me think I should get my blood sugar checked right away . . . )

The ne plus ultra of candy in my neck of the woods was a box of
Fanny Farmer assorted chocolates. They only appeared at
Christmas, when my dad would bring home a one pound box
on Christmas Eve. We children were allowed to pick one piece,
just one, out of the red satin innards of the box -- and I always
seemed to choose the one with maple nut nougat, which I
thoroughly despised. To me, maple was not a candy flavor
at all. One year I finally got fed up with this state of affairs,
and when no one was looking I surreptitiously took a bite
out of half a dozen pieces until I found one with a creamy
coconut center, which I scarfed down in a trice. The resulting
furor when my clandestine gnawing was discovered sent me to
bed early, with a grim warning that Santa would be informed of
my malfeasance -- which just might interfere with his
open-handed spirit that year.

I slept badly that night, as only a greedy and guilty little boy can,
but the next morning proved that the jolly old fat gent had not
stinted despite my crimes. I got a Wham O Air Blaster, an
Erector Set, and a stocking full of chocolate coins wrapped
in gold foil. Having demolished the chocolate coins in one
piggish sitting, I declined the waffles mom had made that
morning for breakfast. And for once, thank heavens, nobody
prated at me about spoiling my appetite.