“Candy is childhood, the best and bright moments you wish could have lasted forever.”
Last night it rained, but I missed it. The streets were still wet this morning so I didn’t miss it by much. I caught the annoying bug, but it wasn’t a cricket but rather a smokeippus alarmus more commonly known as a smoke alarm. It was time to change the battery.
Today is overcast and humid. We may even have more rain later. Movie night is postponed until tomorrow just in case. Someone is cutting his lawn, but the sound is muted in the thickness of the air. The feeders are popular this morning.
The red store and the white store were where we went for milk or bread or whatever else my mother needed. The white store was run by two old ladies, sisters I think. The red store was just one guy who smoked a lot. The store had a haze. The two ladies were patient and pleasant. Their store had a penny candy case, and they’d wait until we’d picked what we wanted. It was never easy. Sometimes I went for the hard candy like Mary Janes, Bit-o-Honey or the square candy with green mint and yellow banana flavors. All of them lasted a long time which was their appeal. Other times I went for the small, chocolatey, licorice candies with the racist name. We didn’t realize the meaning of that word. To us it was just the name of the candy. Sometimes I’d buy the paper with all the colored dots. The only problem was a bit of paper sometimes came with the dots. The ladies also had nickel bars, but we seldom had that much money. The Red Store had everything. The store was small and the aisles narrow, but every space was filled. There was even a frozen case on the far wall. I also remember a display of everything Hostess. It had penny candy, but the owner wasn’t very patient. Sometimes, though, I had to bike there to get what my mother wanted because the white store didn’t have it.
I miss the little stores. They helped make a neighborhood.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: errands, humid and warm, Mary Janes, muted sounds, overcast, penny candy, smoke alarm, smoking man, two old ladies, White and Red Stores
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August 22, 2015 at 1:38 pm
Hi Kat,
Our local milk and bread store was Blanche’s. It had another name but nobody called it that. It was just Blanche’s. It was a tiny place that took up most of the cellar of the house above. It was a stone cellar and the only windows were in the front at the entrance. The store was always cool and dark. Blanche herself was a daunting woman to us kids. She always had a frown and was usually curt in her remarks. She did have a lot of patience with the penny candy transactions, though. These were important decisions after all.
The store is still there and still has a version of it’s original name that nobody ever used. Blanche is long gone and several owners have had the store since then.
I went for the candy pills, too, and sometimes got a little queasy from paper overdose. 🙂 Mary Janes and Bazooka bubble gum were good. Squirrels were, too. I never saw the racist candy in Blanche’s. She had black licorice bears with crystallized sugar on them. Like gum drops only denser. There were licorice twists and strings in both black and red. Blanche had an extensive penny candy selection. It was difficult to choose.
Today is murky. That’s the only word for it. Sometimes the sky gets bright but the clouds remain. It looks like it wants to rain but just hasn’t got the energy. I know how it feels. 🙂
Enjoy the day.
August 22, 2015 at 3:46 pm
Hi Caryn,
I remember Squirrels. They were the chewiest. Now they’d take out my fillings. I also loved those black, sugary jelly bears, still do. They were like the black piece of Chuckles. Every store around had those other chocolate racist candies. I was never a bubble gum chewer. It seemed such a waste of energy except when making bubbles.
Blanche sounds a bit scary though I doubt anyone could come between me and my penny candy.
I turned off my AC this morning, but then around 1:30 went out and did a few errands. It was horribly humid. I turned on the air when i got home.
It is getting darker so we may get rain.
Have a wonderful eveing, quiet and easy!
August 23, 2015 at 6:08 pm
Blanche could have been a librarian. 🙂
August 23, 2015 at 10:56 pm
One of old time librarians-scary!!
August 22, 2015 at 3:33 pm
Unfortunately, the big box retailers have killed small independent retailers in this country. Surprisingly, young people are flocking to small independent stores. What was old is new again.
When I was kid in NYC every couple of blocks had a “candy” store. They were a combination newsstand, soda fountain, luncheonette and candy store. They opened long hours and served a New York favorite beverage, the Egg Cream. An Egg Cream had nothing to do with eggs. It was a chocolate soda with a little milk. To make the Egg Cream look and taste good required about a quarter of the glass contain the milk first and then mix in the “Fox’s Ubet” chocolate syrup. Then adding the seltzer and stirring created a white foam on the top of a milk chocolate colored soda. Properly prepared there was some of the chocolate syrup at the bottom of the glass.
I always loved the chocolate flavored licorice and the pretzel sticks.
Warm and muggy with highs in the mid 90’s.
August 22, 2015 at 3:56 pm
Bob,
A lot of the squares in the cities have only small stores. They are the best places to shop and to eat. The big stores wouldn’t have the room to operate so they are on the outskirts of the cities and in malls. I used to love wandering in those stores when I was young, and now I can do it again.
I’ve never had an egg cream though I have heard of them. They sound like a chocolate soda New England style. That means milk, seltzer and syrup all whipped together. That confuses people who expect ice cream. That would mean ordering a frappe.
I don’t think I have ever tasted chocolate licorice. My favorite is the red. I don’t like the black. I remember they sold pretzel sticks which were stored in a tall class contained with a metal lid.
Make the temperature the 80’s and ours would be similar.
August 22, 2015 at 5:24 pm
By George I think a New England style chocolate soda is just a Northern version of the Egg Cream. I do know that you call a Sundae a Frappe and I don’t know why. When I was a zidovudine my mother called a malted milk shake a frappe. A favorite brand of New York soda that is sold in delicatessens is Dr. Brown’s. They make the best Cream Soda and Celray Tonic, which is made from celery. Not my favorite. In Texas no one had ever heard of an Egg Cream or a Dr. Brown’s. Here they all drank Dr. Pepper when I came here in the early 1950s. To me Dr, Pepper tastes like carbonated prune juice even though they claim there is non in the drink.
August 22, 2015 at 6:41 pm
Bob,
A sundae is a sundae. A frappe in New England is what everyone else calls a milkshake. People from elsewhere get annoyed when they order a milk shake and get no ice cream. The answer they get is you should have ordered a frappe.
I never heard of Celray soda. Dr. Pepper tastes like medicine to me.
August 22, 2015 at 3:42 pm
There were lots of small grocery stores in my neighborhood and they all were small. One of them was of the old fascioned kind where all the groceries were behind the counter, most people didn’t like that store because it just took so long to get what one wanted. But since it was a poor neighborhood everyone eventually bought what they needed there too because they could put in on the bill and pay when they had money again.
That was possible in all of the stores so as soon as they had reached the limit of how much they could owe to the store they just changed store for a while 🙂 They were just as broke as before when they got some money because they had to pay their bills the same day the money arrived 🙂
We also had a candy shop named Morgana. The owner mostly had candy but also newspapers and tobacco. just a few yars away there was a tobacco shop that naturally sold tobacco but also newspapers and some candy 🙂 The tobacco shop also sold things like notebooks, letter paper and the oh so important silk paper. Important for us kids who wanted to build a kite (or dragon as we call them). It’s an extremely thin paper but rather strong and worked perfect for kite making.
All of them are gone now except for the candy shop, it looks much the same but feels lots smaller than it did when I was a kid 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
August 22, 2015 at 4:05 pm
Christer,
I think in my mother’s day there were some stores like that, but I never saw any. They all were walk around, find then pick up what you need. Cigarettes were sold from behind the counter when stores still had them.
I don’t know about putting things on the bill as I never did the shopping with my mother. I only bought the emergency items she sent me to buy.
My town was too small for a tobacco store. People bought their cigarettes and such at any store, even a drug store. The little stores all sold newspapers. The Red store was most popular for the Sunday paper.
We have a couple of fancy candy stores, but they even sell some penny candy!!
Enjoy your Saturday night!
August 22, 2015 at 8:31 pm
Ahhh yes.
Every town has one. In Long Branch NJ we had a candy store named Giglio’s, which was owned by two brothers and a sister. She was named Rosie. At this moment I cannot recall the names of the two brothers…think one was named Jimmy…hold it – it was Jimmy and Reggie…
Since my Dad’s barber was across the street and I tagged with him everywhere, I recall my Dad spending a lot of time in there to grab whatever he needed before going home at night. I recall buying candy and soda and ice cream and comics and baseball cards. When I got older, I rode my bike there. When my father died, I vividly recall how truly sad and upset they were. They loved my Dad…
The location has been many things since then, but now serves as a Spanish/English translation center…an example of a changing neighborhood…as it should be, because as much as we want to freeze time, we can’t.
Thanks for bringing up a nice memory…
And Bob’s memory of an egg cream…mmmmmm…darn you Bob! Now I want one!
Waving,
Coleen
August 22, 2015 at 9:23 pm
Coleen,
It is always interesting what we remember and how much we remember. Those stores were important so we remembered. You even had names.
I loved stores like that where you can buy neat stuff and sweet stuff. Giglio’s had become a family store and your dad was part of that family.
No, we can’t freeze time. We just try to keep moving and staying in time.
You are very welcome!
Waving, Kat
August 24, 2015 at 11:54 am
My Nana always used to sing this one to us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUXN0yynPxI. Your post made me remember that. Thank you!
August 24, 2015 at 12:36 pm
Sara,
This is brand new to me, and I love it. I’m adding it to my candy file. Thanks for the introduction!