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Blame this one on Reddit. I saw a post about weird soda beverages and had a flashback to my younger days.
Whenever we kids visited my grandparents in Arkansas, I loved going to the corner store. It was a really old-fashioned family-run place. As bad as my memory is sometimes, I close my eyes right now and remember details about that store (except what it was called!)
On the counter, there was a huge carboy-style jar of dill pickles on one end. There was a big basket of lemons and little jars of fat peppermint sticks. One of my cousins and I would each get a peppermint stick. I would get a lemon and my cousin would get a pickle. We'd insert our peppermints in the center of the sour treats and suck the pickle or lemon juice that was sweetened by the candy.
I also remember that this store had a little of everything. We'd pick up things for my grandma - borax soap flakes, butter, milk, and eggs, cleaning rags, liniment, aspirin powders, etc. For us kids there was candy and soda like I never saw in Alaska: Black Jack and Beeman's chewing gum, flavored wax (in the shape of lips), candy cigarettes, and little packs of black, licorice-flavored chewing tar. The sodas were the most amazing, in flavors like chocolate, peach, and apple.
It's a wonder I had such good teeth (well, until I hit 60!). When I think of being young and dusty-kneed, I mostly remember the candy and treats. Laffy Taffy, string necklaces made of sugary candy, rock candy suckers, Tootsie Rolls, plastic rings with huge candy "stones", and - one of my favorites - little cloth bags filled with little "gold nuggets" of candy-coated gum.
One of my older brothers has always had a sweet tooth and when he and my other brothers and I went back for my dad's funeral, he made sure to stop at that corner store on the way out of town. He loaded up on sodas - chocolate, grape, and peach - peanut patties, and honey buns for the long drive back to the airport. I got a stomach ache just watching him. This is pre-9-11 so he could pack his carry-on with all his goodies. Speaking of my dad, he loved those cinnamon toothpicks from his youth. He somehow always managed to find a place to buy them, no matter where we were stationed.
For a long time, I thought I would never be able to enjoy those treats from my childhood. Then along came the internet. Over the past 8 or 9 years, I have been able to track down most of those things.
- This is one website for old-fashioned treats
- This is another (I've ordered from them in the past but just right now noticed that they have cinnamon toothpicks)
- Amazon carries Dickies peanut patties (I'm not sure if that's the brand of my youth though)
- Here is a place I also just now discovered. I might have to see about getting my brother some "soda water", as we called it!
- Or I could buy Grape Nehi soda here...
- And, of course, you can shop for weird & crazy soda & retro candy at Blooms. If you're into strange soda flavors, this is the place. They have the bacon-flavored soda mentioned on Reddit. Also... peanut butter and jelly soda???
Since Christmas is soon to be here, I might have to find something retro and edible for my brother with a sweet tooth. Give him a map to a walk down memory lane.
Peace
--Free
