The other day I woke up feeling pitiful. I was grouchy, grumpy and feeling sorry for myself and not even a call to my best friend or my usual Starbucks run made me feel better. Eventually, the only way I found that I could nourish my woeful psyche was to reach for the chocolate bars that were on the kitchen counter. Somehow, miraculously, a double dose of Snickers did the trick. Life was suddenly sweet again! So I started wondering, just what was this magic combination of chocolate and peanuts that could transform my pathetic, unhappy soul into some blissful, peace and love trance? Why did tearing off the wrappers and biting into these crunchy, gooey candy bars bring back memories of childhood innocence, contentment and the feeling of being comforted?
And then I remembered . . . . I remembered when I was a child and on my dad’s paydays he would bring home a candy surprise as a special treat. He knew that Snickers was my favorite, so he would stop by the local candy store on his way home and either bring home a small brown bag of penny candy, or two candy bars - one for my mom, and one for me. My sister was still a baby at the time, so she was too little to eat candy, which was just fine with me. I wasn’t into sharing. I was particularly fond of Snickers, not so much for the taste, but because Snickers was the sponsor of my favorite TV show, The Howdy Doody Show. And Howdy Doody was my idol. And even back then, I had my priorities straight!
If my dad didn’t bring home Snickers, or Bit-O-Honey or candy necklaces, he would bring home a bag of penny candy that would keep me on a sugar high for most of the following week: Root Beer Barrels, Marshmallow Peanuts, Flying Saucers, Bazooka Bubblegum, Candy Cigarettes and Red Wax Lips, they were all there. My best friend and I would take turns putting on the paraffin Red Lips or the Liquorice Mustaches, and we would run up to dad and pretend that we were Marilyn Monroe or Groucho Marx. And every time, he would look down at us and pretend that he didn’t know who we were and act like we were famous movie stars.
The candy store was located on West 130th Street in the West Park section of Cleveland. I remember on Halloween my dad would take me by the hand and into the candy store we would go - me, with my Princess Summerfall Winterspring costume, and my dad, waiting for the store clerk to fill my papier-mâché pumpkin with candy. There was a wide glass case with wooden partitions where the candy bars were displayed, and jars and jars of jaw breakers, red and black liquorice sticks, hard candy, and long strips of button candies. You name it, it was there. It was a candy oasis!
Back then my family was poor, so we didn‘t get a lot of treats. My dad worked at one of the auto plants and towards the end of the month it was slim pickings. So on payday, my father’s gift was more than a candy bar or a bag of goodies, it was a gesture of his love. My dad wasn’t much of a conversationalist. He would come home from work, eat dinner, sit on his lounge chair, watch the evening news, and fall asleep. That was his nightly ritual. But once a month without exception, he would change his routine, stop at that candy store, pick out my favorite-of-the-month candy and come home with his present.
I miss my dad. In 1976, he had a heart attack while working at his job and died two weeks later. I wasn’t living at home at the time, but when I came home for the funeral, sitting in the refrigerator was a bag of candy. So you see, Snickers are more to me than caramel nougat, peanuts and chocolate. They’re a little bite of love, a layer of comfort, and a whole lot of memories.
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