My Last 5 Diary Entries

It will be my first time...... - 2005-03-28

"Fun Times on McClellan Street" - 2005-02-23

"Dress Rehearsal" - 2005-02-05

DON'T DO IT!! - 2005-02-02

Here We Go! - 2004-12-31

Sweet Peeps

�Sweet Tooth�

�Sweet Tooth�

The other day, I was reminded of something as I was reading yet another clever comment posted by my friend and yours, HRT. He made a reference to the Now & Later candies that so many of us enjoyed as a kid. Granted, they still make these, as I like to refer to them, eat some now and wish you had some more laters. However, they are just not quite the same as they used to be. They are a bit smaller I think, and I don�t much care for those new fangled flavors. I remember and loved the basics: grape, cherry, orange, and when you wanted to live dangerously, banana.

This made me start thinking of the other fine confections of yesterday and my sweet tooth was just a aching. Aching for a Marathon Bar. Do you remember these? They were about a foot long and were made up of three strips of caramel braided together. I mean to tell ya, a Marathon Bar and a Coke (a Coke in a little glass bottle out of the red cooler filled with ice cold water and a bottle opener on the side)�divine.

I was also quite fond of the Squirrel Nut Zippers. I am not sure exactly what was in them (except for a little piece of heaven) but I do know they were tasty. They were so cute in their little brown wrappers in a big dish next to the other penny candy.

Do you remember penny candy? It actually only costed a penny a piece or in some instances two for a penny. These phenomena alone, for the first time in history, made the penny worth having. You could go into the store with fifty cents and come out with enough candy to make you sufficiently ill by morning. What can you get for a penny these days? I know. Nothing. (Oh, except for someone�s stupid thoughts�but good news, mine are free.)

The best thing on a stick? B B Bats. A nice portion of grade A taffy on a stick. Again, simple yet delectable flavors. You had vanilla, strawberry, banana and my personal favorite, chocolate. Also very nice, the B B Bat�s cousin---Kits. Individual pieces of taffy about the size of Chicklets. These were a little annoying because each one had its own wrapper. A little work, but well worth it.

Candy makers and kids today are confused. Candy, by definition, is supposed to be sweet. I don�t understand all this nonsense with the sour shit. Tear Jerkers, Warheads, Sour StarBurst, etc. are not, and I repeat, not, good candy. It is not even candy. It is just plain nasty. When I was a kid, if someone would have given me something that made my tongue try to crawl down my throat in fear I would have punched them dead in their face.

The fact that youngsters today are not able to indulge in the sweetness that was our youth is criminal. Pure criminal. Like so many things, they just don�t know what good is.