Claire bought some Halloween candy for the trick or treaters a couple of days ago — it was an assortment of various candies, all made by the same company, I’m sure. But as I looked at the bag, I realized that only a couple of names stuck out that I remember from my childhood.
When I was growing up, my grandad, my uncle and my dad all owned grocery stores at some time during my childhood. (When I was little, there were no supermarkets or food stores — if the store sold food, it was a grocery store.)
But all the grocery stores had a “candy counter,” and that’s where all the candy was… it wasn’t located throughout the store like it is today and there was no candy at the checkout counters, because there weren’t any checkout counters. People just strolled around the store and piled their items on long counters.
But back to the candy — I was just thinking about the candy that was popular, at least in Maysville, when I was growing up. There was always Hershey bars, Milky Way, Mars bars, Oh Henry, Mounds, Almond Joy, Clark, Nestle, Butterfinger, Heath, Baby Ruth, PayDay, Snickers, Mallo Cup, Krackel and Bazooka and Fleers bubble Gum.
A candy bar that was always in the candy counter was Forever Yours — I don’t know if they still make them… it was a “vanilla” Milky Way. And the 3 Musketeers was scored in 3 pieces and each section was a different color inside — they all tasted the same, but were different colors.
The big candy company when I was a kid — other than Hershey and Mars — was Curtis, that made Butterfinger, Baby Ruth and a number of other popular names. One staple in the candy department was always gum… I only remember Wrigley’s (Spearmint, Doublemint, and Juicy Fruit, mostly) and Dentine. But there was always bubble gum — the only two I remember is Bazooka and Fleers. Fleers came wrapped with a small comic strip in each piece.
Another “staple” on the candy counter was candy cigarettes. Back then, no one ever though about cigarettes being dangerous — most adults smoked and kids enjoyed candy cigarettes. They were very popular.
One other thing that was always on the candy counter, especially in my grandad’s store was peanuts. I remember small bags of Planter’s peanuts with “Mr.. Peanut” on the label, but there was another very popular peanut item — I don’t remember the name. For those of you old enough to remember when cameras used film, these peanuts came in a short round tube just about the size of a 35mm film canister. The attractive thing about these peanuts was that if you were lucky, you might find money in the container. Some of the containers contained coins — usually a penny, dime or nickel, but if you were very lucky you might find a quarter! Obviously, such packaging wouldn’t be allowed today.
Anyhow, I think candy was more of a treat 80 years ago than it is today. If you got a candy bar, it was special.
So on Halloween night, the trick or treaters won’t realize how lucky they are…. they’ll certainly get more candy here in Deerfield Village than we got in an entire year.
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