Penny Candy and the King

I don’t particular care for the idea of growing older. Does anyone? Until recently it was something that commanded very little of the forepart of my higher mind.

Aging is a subliminal, gradual process and observing the relatively slow changes in the world around you, on a day to day basis…thank god, certainly numbs one to the overall effect.

But, memories have rules of their own and sometimes you have a re-visitation of something from your youth that flashes back at you, full force, so nostalgic and poignant that it stops you in your tracks and you are stymied. Such was the case, for me, last Thursday.

I was badly in need of toothpaste and other such necessities.

I am the typical procrastinator and I will literally use a rolling pin or some similar instrument to eek the last dab of toothpaste from the tube rather than take the five-minute trip to purchase another. Well the rolling pin-o-plenty no longer held any sway over the laws of demand so off I went.

I arrived at my local supermarket and went in. I noticed immediately that they had made some changes since my last obligatory trip. The aisles were somewhat changed and they seemed to have added several features to the cavernous space that is our neighborhood, built for you, convenient megamart.

I was, of course, suspicious of my perceptions. After all, it could simply be that given the length of time that had passed since my last visit I may have forgotten how the store was laid out…Or perhaps I was getting senile and I’d never actually visited this particular store.

Well anyone can see how pressing questions of this nature are, and I was just as curious as you, kind reader…I set out to find the answers…A blasé trip had now become a quest…Well maybe not a quest but certainly something more entertaining than a toothpaste run!

I walked to the left, toward the big sign that said DAIRY. I passed several counters and was immediately rewarded with answers to both of the aforementioned questions.
I saw Robert, (remembered by name tag not face) the assistant store manager, standing behind the customer service desk. I recognized him as someone I had on several occasions spoken to on matters of, go figure, customer service. The second question was answered simply by the fact that the service desk was in a very different place than that of my infrequent, previous visits.

Yes I had been here, and yes things had changed.

Well, you might now think that my important mission was finished, but nay…on it went. Simply finding the new location of the toothpaste would have been too mundane a task and since I hated this excursion in the first place I did what any adventurous and extremely bored person in my shoes might do—I went exploring.

I got four or five aisles down and was beginning to despair that things were really not that different. Imagine the disappointment I would feel if I made no grand discovery—had no epiphany. Why then a boring trip to the supermarket would also go unheralded.

At the sixth aisle I was rewarded…I stopped dead in my tracks… The entire passageway was lined with bins of individually wrapped morsels of candy…This was very new—yet, very, very…Familiar.

Nostalgia washed over me in a tidal surge and I was transfixed by my memories. I could no more have staved them off then have stopped a speeding train.

I was 10 again it was July 1977 and I was walking into Martino’s five and dime, our local corner store. I was hot and sweaty from washing my mothers car on a sweltering summer day. In my dirty little hand I held the awesome reward for my labors…A rather faded one-dollar bill. My younger sister was next to me and she held a similar bill, but mine was sweeter because it was mine, I’d earned it. My sister was simply on an errand. A small crowd of our neighborhood friends had gathered outside knowing full well what our mission was. They of course stayed on the sidewalk and waited for us to emerge…Everyone knows that it is against the rules to accompany the Questing Monarch into the sacred chambers of the Candy God when no offering was had to give the resident deity. Better to stand outside and wait for alms from the mighty Knight Gallant…He who had risen to be King, and also, you know, had the requisite payment.

As always old Tom Martino was behind the counter, his shocking white hair standing out against the dark blue backdrop of the wall. His kind and knowing eyes never failed to move me. He said hello to my sister and I--then moved off to the candy counter. He knew why we had come, he always did. His great and generous hands put a huge brown paper bag on the counter. In retrospect it was actually a pretty small bag but to our small mentalities it was a massive satchel…Set to hold all the bounty of the kingdom. This was my burden!

As his smiling eyes met ours we knew, that he knew, the importance of our mission…The delicious twinkle in those knowing orbs reminding us that it was now our world, all the choices ours.

Under the bag we faced the glassed encased treasure trove of which surely all men dreamed…Row upon row of beautiful colored, individually wrapped pieces of penny candy.

There were Bit-O-Honeys and Fireballs and Caramels and Jawbreakers. There was Peanut Brittle and Tootsie Rolls and Mary Janes and Now-and-Laters. Starbursts, Gumballs, Spearmint Leaves and Tangy-Taffy…The list seems almost as endless now as it did then, each glorious nugget cost the princely sum of one penny.

It was decidedly impolitic to chose your candy piece by piece and old Mr. Martino could not count anyway…Every kid in the neighborhood knew this. He was a kindly old man that operated a successful business but we knew his math skills were sadly lacking. No matter what denomination you put on the counter he always seemed to miscount and give you more. We knew this but we also knew that it was sacrilege to correct your elders so we let the poor man make his mistakes in obscurity.

The drill was such…You would place your denomination on the counter. From ten cents to five dollars and Mr. Martino would begin grabbing huge hand fulls of candy and load them into the sack. He would sometimes listen to you as you pointed to a particular delicacy but more often than not you were at his mercy. What could one do, have we not already established that perhaps Mr. Martino was a bit slow, to suggest that he may not know what was best would surely add insult to injury.

Handful after wondrous handful went into that bag. The memories were tangible and I felt myself give of an involuntary shiver of joy, as if I were there, in that small store, oh so many years ago. I could feel bitter-sweet tang of my salivary gland kicking into high gear and I’m sure my eyes got wider with every remembered handful of confectionary splendor.

Finally the bag was full and he made the first move in the seemingly endless process of handing it over. With reverence one would expect from a serf accepting the Crown Jewels in 18th century England—I embraced my burden.

It was, of course, not permitted to begin eating in the store, no that would be the work of some commoner--and not the act of the Knight Gallant turned King. I waited patiently as my sister, exasperatingly slow as it seemed, got the things that our mother had requested.

We left the store and now the well rehearsed and unalterable ritual began. Our small gathering of followers was waiting, wide eyed and expectant, when we emerged into the glorious summer sun. Each had played the game before and all had been given the opportunity to be King. No one pushed or was rude they knew they would all get their chance.

Reverently, I sealed the bag by folding the top flap over. There was no sound except the delicious crinkle of the sack. I paused and looked into each of my followers eyes…Yes I was King and I would, upon acknowledgment of that fact, share some small boon with each of my subjects. Their cherubic faces flashed the proper amount of respect and I launched into the next step of the ritual.

I held the bag up and panned across the field of vision of each member of my courtly entourage like a magician showing that there was indeed no rabbit in the hat. Once the assemblage had seen that there was no trick…I vigorously shook the bag insuring that no two of the same morsel was next to each other. Then one at a time each child reached in would quickly and blindly take a single piece of candy from the sack. There were no trade-ins or do-overs and they had to eat the prize they had seized before another was given (even the dreaded Mary Jane’s). This was the rule and NO-ONE was allowed to deviate. After the first round was passed only then was the King allowed his random choice of bounty, for yes the King too was bound by the tenets of law else how could he rule justly.

After every one was chewing happily on the first offering we all turned toward home, walking and alternately shaking the bag and picking out new and better candy treats.

I was jostled, rather rudely, out of my surprisingly poignant reverie by a woman trying to maneuver her over-filled shopping cart past me. I had the wonderful feeling that you sometimes get when waking from a dream while yet lingering somewhat in it. I could feel the fast fading sunlight on my 10 year old face and taste the unbelievably sweet nectar of the Bit-O-Honey I had chosen.

Several minutes later the shoppers entering my local supermarket were treated to a somewhat strange sight. A forty-year old man with graying hair, a paunch and what I can only assume was a very strange, youthful grin on his face coupled with a rather detached look in his eyes. He was carrying two items from the store (neither was toothpaste).

They were, in his right hand, a clear plastic bag filled with precisely 100 pieces of ‘penny’ candy which he was vigorously shaking…In his left hand, a receipt for ten dollars plus seventy-two cents tax.