her able hands

My sister and I (Hi Jen!) loved Saturdays. Well, we loved Saturdays after our chores were finished and our chart was all checked off: dust (check), dust mop (check), change sheets (check), put laundry away (check), clean up toys (check). Then we walked or pedaled our bikes the mile and a half to the little general store; each with our dollar fifty allowance burning a hole in the pocket of our plaid polyester pants.

We stopped at the cement bridge over the Taunton River and depending on what the season, we threw sticks and rocks into the water then ran across the road to the other side to see the branches emerge and float away. Or we slid down the narrow path to the edge so we could step on the thin shelves of ice around the fat tufts of river grass on the shore. They made the most delightful, cracking echo. Or we pulled plump, wild Concord Grapes from the vines overhanging the edge of the bridge and popped the sour, green pits out of their tough, cloudy, purple skins and onto our tongues. We sucked the sweet and sour syrup out of the pulp, and then spit the seeds into the tumbling water.

Beyond the bridge was the stretch of corn fields. Sometimes we got off our bikes and walked into the rustling rows and giggled with the panic of being out of sight of the road and the fear of getting caught trespassing, or of getting lost in the corn forever. But the fields weren’t as big as we thought they were; it was easy to find our way back.

After the fields a low stone wall began along the front yards of old, stately homes. Sometimes we walked along the top of it. One of the houses was a halfway house for wayward boys. Sleep away Juvie school. The older we got, the less afraid and the more intrigued we became with the bad boys who lived in the big, white house. Sometimes they were outside doing yard work. Usually they kept their attention on their task, but sometimes they’d stop and watch us go by. Yell something. Make us run.

Next stop was the small school playground with the dangerous, metal climbing gym. One of those ten foot tall monstrosities that you never see on playgrounds anymore.

Finally we arrived at Caswell’s General Store. Our true destination: the candy aisle. I don’t remember what Jen wasted her hard-earned cash on, but my tongue still burns from the canker sores I gave myself every week. I tried to mix it up a little, but these were the standbys: a bag of Atomic Fire Balls, a can of Mountain Dew, either a bag of Jolly Ranchers or a few Jolly Ranchers Stix (my favorite the Fire Stix), a Marathon Bar, a Charleston Chew (frozen natch), Tootsie Roll Drops (why have they discontinued these brilliant candies?), and last resort—a Chunky Bar.

We always stopped at the big, yellow church across the street from the school on our way home so we could roll our cans of soda down the cement walkway a few times before we opened them, then tried to catch as much of the sticky-sweet geyser in our mouths.

The goal was to make the candy last until the following weekend, but I always gorged myself in the first two days, then yearned for the next Saturday with an aching sweet tooth.

Here’s the correct way to consume the candies:

Atomic Fireball: Unwrap one and drop it into a glass of Mountain Dew. Let it sit, checking it frequently for progress, in equal measure horrified and thrilled at the efficiency of the soda’s ability to dissolve the rock-hard candy. Meanwhile pop another one in your mouth and hope it will be a more porous one that starts to get little air holes on the surface as soon as the hot coating gets sucked away, allowing you to bite down and crack the thing in half with your teeth, then crunch it into powdery, wet bits. Otherwise you’re stuck having to suck away at the damned thing with a tongue so raw and burned it feels like you got it stuck on the mailbox on a blinding white winter day after a blizzard again. When the one in the Mountain Dew has disappeared completely and the soda is now a hideous orange—a festering, bubbly, rust-colored concoction, drink it down as fast as you can. Sit still for a moment to let the juices settle and begin to work their way back up, then dispense with the loudest burp you can manage, deeply satisfied.

Jolly Ranchers Fire Stix: only unwrap this halfway, otherwise you won’t get the proper ridge to form along the line where the plastic meets the candy. This one takes perseverance, and a little bit of pain management, because the longer you suck on it, the more it resembles a razor and if you’re not very careful you risk shredding your tongue to ribbons. Or at least slicing a few of the huge, sugar cankers clean off the surface of the poor, stinging flap of flesh. The Jolly Ranchers individual pieces aren’t as exciting, but you do have to be careful not to get one stuck to the surface of a tooth, especially a loose tooth. They morph into a sort of syrupy-sweet, super-glue amalgam after just a minute in the mouth.

Marathon Bar: the thing with this candy bar is the chocolate coating. You have to be almost religious about your unwrapping technique or you’ll lose most of the chocolate in a thousand flakes all over your pants and the floor. Sure, the perfect caramel braid is almost enough on its own, but maintaining that chocolate coating is the true reward. Oh, the cheap, waxy milk goodness!

Charleston Chew Bar: as I mentioned before, this bar needs to be frozen to fully appreciate all of the nuances of the vanilla nougat when it begins to warm up in your mouth and release the sugar and flavor in waves. The best thing to do is to take it out of the freezer and crack it on the countertop a few times to break it into a bunch of manageable pieces. These are long candy bars and thus the pieces can be stored in the freezer to maintain their icy status and you can consume them slowly over the course of a day or two. Unless you’re me, and you just stand with your hand on the freezer door and reach in for a refill as soon as you swallow until there’s nothing left but a few flakes of chocolate. Lick those right out of the paper wrapping. Oh, and this is another one to be cautious with if you have any loose teeth. Or fillings. I’m just saying.

Tootsie Roll Drops: I don’t think these need much explanation and I didn’t have a special technique for eating them, but I’m seriously considering starting an internet campaign to bring these perfect candies back on the market. Will you join me?

Chunky Bar: It’s the height of these bad boys that fascinates. You really have to be committed to a mouthful of not-so-great chocolate. I never had any particular rules with this candy bar, it was more like a brush with danger when I bought one. I was living on the wild side. They seemed grown-up and almost impossible to eat. Honestly, I don’t think I even liked them very much.

So what did you waste your weekly allowance on? Did you have a favorite candy and a wicked sweet tooth like me, or did you have a tube sock full of rolled up dollar bills stuffed into the hole in your box spring because you were saving for that Member’s Only jacket? Did you use it to buy the latest Archie comic? Or did you invest in action figures, or chia pets? Really. I’m curious.

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