Sweet Treats at the 7-11

When I was ten years old, I was filled with delicious anticipation whenever I took a little spin on my bike to the 7-11.  The pockets of my camp pants would be heavily weighted down change that I had scrounged around for. It was amazing how careless adults were with their money!  Pennies, Nickels, dimes, and an occasional Quarter or two were everywhere in our house. In junk drawers, under cushions, in little knick-knack dishes, and old beer steins. Once I was satisfied that I had found all the dough I could, I was off to purchase as much candy as my newly found treasure would buy. But, it could not be just any candy. It had to be a carefully chosen mix of good candy that also offered a high return on investment. My profit was sweetness and the goal was to buy an assortment that would last a very long time. It was the 1970s, and the candy racks were filled with varieties that have mostly disappeared from the shelves today.

There was logic behind each selection I made. My pocket change would only go so far. I knew that to get my money's worth, I would have to purchase a certain amount of what the old folks called penny candy. These were more like nickel or dime candy in my day. My go-to for this category were called bb-bats!  bb-bats were basically a kind of flavored taffy on a paper stick. They came in fruit flavors that had that off-kilter, uncanny, artificial taste to them. Banana was my favorite. Strawberry was a distant second. I would get about four or five of these and still have plenty of coins remaining.

Next, I had to decide what my major purchase would be. Which candy bar or two would I spend up to 35 cents on? This was a make or break decision. I could have gone for a classic like a Snickers, but that would be a mistake. It would be at the top end of the price range and it was shorter than some other bars to boot. My decision usually boiled down to this: 

Choice A: I could go with a Marathon bar. It was 8 inches long!  And we knew that because they printed a ruler right on the package.  We had been taught in school that the metric system was coming to America any day then. So, the good folks at the Marathon bar company had included centimeters on the ruler as well. I now knew that 8 inches equaled twenty centimeters.

 I believe that is the only metric conversion that I still know today.

Choice B:  The less obvious, but equally compelling option of the enigmatic
Nestle's Choco-Lite bar. Was it a weird texture? Was there something a little off with the flavoring? The answer was yes, on both counts. It was described as being filled with crispy chips. I do not know what chips they are talking about. In my experience there was nothing but little air holes dispersed throughout the whole candy bar. The wrapper boasted that it would give me a special chocolaty feeling. Notice they said chocolaty, not chocolate. But, it had a couple of things going for it.  First, it was usually priced a bit lower than the other bars. And second, I have to admit that there was something to that bit about a special chocolaty feeling. It seemed to make the sweetness linger a little longer on my tongue.

Usually, I had enough to purchase both bars, as long as I bypassed some of the other similarly priced non-bar candy.  So, my other option might be to get the Marathon bar. It would take a long time to chew through 8 inches of the chocolate coated and extra-chewy caramel filling. Instead of the chocolaty air-hole bar, I could go with something much more sugary. I often went for the Fun Dip. Whoever invented this was a genius! It was basically a laminated foil pouch filled with flavored sugar crystals. The brilliance was in the method that the good folks at fun dip invented for eating the sugary powder. In a separate compartment in the pouch was a little stick made of compressed sugar. So, you would lick the sweet stick to wet it with your saliva, and then dip the sticky-stick into the flavored sugar. It was like magic the way the colorful sugar crystals would then cling to the stick. Then you return the coated, sugary utensil back to your mouth to suck the flavored crystal right off of it. This process was then repeated over and over until all the fun dip was gone. You had no choice at this point then but to finish off the much diminished stick.

There were other choices that could be made. Some of my other options included a candy that offered more than just a sweet flavor. Zotz were little hard candies with a wicked surprise. Soon after you popped it in your mouth, you would feel a little bit of some fizzy, sweet and sour, substance begin to leak from inside the hard shell. Not long after that, the candy shell would give way to a complete release of its fizzy center. It virtually exploded in your mouth, and soon you would feel like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth.  Everyone raves about Pop-Rocks, but they had nothing on Zotz. 

Some others that might make it in my mix were candies like Now & Laters, which we called something that sounded like Ni-ar-laters. They were basically little, sour blocks of taffy. I also enjoyed Sugar Daddy's. Not the most politically sensitive name for a candy. Speaking of politically incorrect, I occasionally bought candy cigarettes. They were a clear attempt to normalize smoking, but back then I just thought they made me look cool. They tasted like sweet chalk, but flavor was not really the point.

The candy that disappointed me the most were called Bottle Caps. They were shaped like the caps on soda bottles. They were supposed to have soda flavorings. They were  flavors like cola or root beer,  and orange or grape soda. They tasted awful. It was a great concept, but can you imagine if they had done this right? What if they had combined efforts with one of the major soda makers. You could have had more genuine flavors. They could have capitalized on the name recognition of Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola. A real missed opportunity.

These days I can not eat candy in the kind of quantities I did as a kid. I believe it would be the end of me if I did. 

I still have a sweet tooth though. 

And I still get that delicious anticipatory feeling when I drive my car to  the 7-11 to grab a zero-sugar Monster drink and a one dollar  pack of two freshly baked cookies, no bag please. 

Check out Marathon bar commercial here.

I Remember Places

“There are places I remember 

in my life, though some have changed 

Some forever not for better 

Some have gone and some remain.”

John Lennon

There are places that I remember in clear detail.  In my life, hardly any places remain as they were. However, I can call them up from the files in my brain and magically transport myself to them as they existed before. My mother re-entered the workforce when I was about ten years old. I had lots of time to explore and roam free, by myself. We lived in Charlotte on a street of small cottages between Eastover and Cotswold. These neighborhoods were divided by, Briar Creek, one of Charlotte’s main waterways. On our side of Briar Creek, there was a pocket of woods with trails, a tributary creek, four small lakes, and a real waterfall.

I spent countless hours exploring every inch of these woods without supervision. I could never become bored in these woods. There were always things to do. I could build little boats made of twigs and send them sailing down the creek. Would my small vessels make it past the boulders, through the rapids, to land safely in a large and calm pool that beavers had created by building a dam? It was a perilous journey for a boat made of twigs. Some made it, some did not.

I look back on the woods now with reverence. For me, it is a sacred place. It may not exist now as it did then, but it remains the same in my mind. I can go back anytime I want and traverse the trails that my feet took so many steps along. I can close my eyes and step into the Morrison’s yard where I would cut across to make my way to the foot of the waterfall. In my mind, I can hear the water spilling over the concrete dam and crashing over the rocks that have been unearthed by the current. I can visualize the old split rail fence that had collapsed in places making it easy to cross into the woods. 

There was an easy spot to rock-hop across the creek to get to the main part of the woods. This was where the trail began. Then it went up a steep hill beside the waterfall, past the first lake which was created by the dam. This is where the trail turned back in the opposite direction and leveled off. From there I made my way to the second lake; an old, abandoned rock quarry. There were two huge boulders that served as a kind of overlook. Sometimes, I might just sit there for a while. If the water was clear, you could sometimes spot an old cart that was used to haul rocks deep beneath the surface. A little further down the trail was a spot known as “Skipper’s Island.” This is where the older kids would hang out when they skipped school, hence the name. Skipper’s Island was really a peninsula that jutted out into the third lake, which was more of a wetland than a lake. It was not deep, and the ground was always soggy around it. Neither the rock quarry nor the lake at Skipper’s Island were connected to the creek.

From Skippers Island, I could backtrack down the trail which then continued to follow the bends in the creek. This part of the trail was high above the creek. The water had cut deep into the earth creating two opposing red-clay walled cliffs. From the trail, you could look over the cliff's edge and see the deep pool built by  beavers.  The water was green and murky. I once saw some sort of giant lizard leap from the top of the cliff and land right in the pool. No one believed me when I told them about it.

Moving along, the trail made its way down a slope and through a wide gulley. The gulley opened to an old wood and rope bridge that connected back to the other edge of the Morrisons yard. Sometimes I might cross the bridge and head back home. Sometimes I would continue following the creek. The trail was not as reliable the rest of the way, but it was easy rock hopping once I was this far downstream of the waterfall. Near the bridge was an area called, “Sand Circle.” A sandy spot encircled by trees that had fallen during a tornado that touched down there. The sand was yellow and flecked with shiny mica. There were freshwater clam shells everywhere. I liked to dig through the sand to find large pieces of mica. For me, it was like finding gold.

At this point, the creek was shallow enough to ford. Once on the opposite side of the creek, the trail was narrow and uneven. This was where I was most likely to slip and would end up getting soaked in creek water. But the last leg of the trail was worth the risk. As I rounded the last bend, lake number four would come into view. It was the largest lake. The trail side of the lake was wooded. The other side was not. There was a large and lush lawn that gently sloped upwards to a stately two-story brick home. To me, it was a mansion. There were mansions on the trail side as well, but they were hidden by the dense woods. I would make my way along the shoreline, wondering what would happen if someone saw me. Would they yell at me to get off their property? No one ever saw me though.

Stonebridge was the final stop and it was at the far end of the lake. Just in front of the bridge was a dam built from stones that matched the bridge. The water did not cascade over this dam like the one at the waterfall. Instead, it trickled out of old pipes that jutted out of the dam. The bridge crossed over the creek and was adjacent to the dam. I would make my way across the road and down the embankment to stand under the bridge. In my memory, it was always cooler under that bridge than anywhere else. I felt safe there. I felt safe in the these woods. I can’t imagine my childhood without them. 

I usually followed Stonebridge Lane back to Vernon Drive. It was an easy walk from there to our cottage on Providence Drive. Remnants of the woods remain, but most of my woods are gone. For some people, the woods were just an opportunity for development and profit. For me, they were so much more. The woods were my refuge. The time I spent in the woods gave me confidence to be self-reliant. 

The woods were my friend.

There are places we remember. I remember the woods.