Nostalgic For Goodies

When I was a kid, there was a little store about 2.5 miles up the road. It was called "Shorty's" and was operated by Delbert "Shorty" Hooper who lived next to the store in a trailer. This was the greatest store ever as far as I was concerned. He had a screened in area our front where he kept produce. Just inside the small interior was a long cooler full of soft drinks. These were kept frosty in ice water, and it actually hurt to dig out your favorite soda. Mine was NeHi. Across from the cooler was an entire aisle devoted to penny candy. Beyond that was the snack aisle. I don't remember anything about the rest of the store.

My friends and I would collect deposit bottles that people apparently threw out their car windows for our benefit and cash them in for soda and candy. I always bought little wax coke bottles filled with sugar water and paper tubes filled with sugar and God knows what else. They were sweet and tart. They may have been called Pixie Sticks. And giant Swee'Tarts were a favorite of my little sister. Among my other favorites were a pan pipe made of chewable flavored wax and a set of large fake lips made of the same stuff. We sometimes bought bubble gum cigarettes and cigars and pretended to smoke like grown ups. Big red hot jawbreakers were favored by my buddy Keith. I liked a hard candy product that had some kind of exploding substance inside it not unlike pop rocks. We could get a lot of candy for just a quarter.

At the Wink Theater in town, now an incipipient megachurch, we would sometimes be given money by our folks for the more high end candy that cost more than a penny. I was a fan of the Chunkie Bar, but it didn't last very long. A Sugar Daddy was the way to go for longevity, or Milk Duds. The concessions at the Wink also included the Chilly Dilly, an enormous chilled dill pickle, and that lasted a while. I would start with the pickle and resort to my candy only when the pickle had been absorbed. We had to make do with the money we had been given since our folks almost never went to the movies with us, and they were pretty tight with a penny in those days even when they were around to beg from. I am amazed at how indulgent my folks were and are with the following generations, what with their having been such candy money begrudgers back in the day.

The best thing on a road trip in those days was to stop at a general store and get a Moon Pie and a Coke or a popsicle.