If you Google the phrase “Old Fashioned Penny Candy” (using the quotes as shown) there will be about 1,500 hits you can explore. They cover the waterfront from present-day sources of old fashioned penny candy to nostalgic reminiscences about the ‘good old days’. While most of you may think that buying a piece of penny candy was a pretty simple after school proposition, I prefer to think that there was more to it. I suggest you get comfortable, forget Google for the time being, and read about the lessons you can’t find in Google about old fashioned penny candy.
By the way, those reading this article that are over 50 probably already understand the subtitle. If you’re younger you may not have a clue but please join me on this trip and read on.
The word penny candy brings back nostalgic memories to many people. Hopefully most of these are pleasant in that they recall a simpler time when you were growing up. Penny candy was probably most important to you when you were in grade school. Hopefully there was a small neighborhood store that perhaps you and your friends would stop at periodically after school. With a few pennies in your pocket you were empowered to make some of the most important decisions of the day: what penny candy should I pick and would I get the best deal for my money.
The pennies could have come from collecting refillable glass bottles along the road and returning them or perhaps from a newspaper route or helping your parents by looking after you little brother or sister. You may have been fortunate to get a small allowance for doing specific chores every week around the house. No matter what, the ability to control and spend your own money made you feel important somehow. You were responsible for what your choices and had to live with the results. These were early lessons in psychology and economics even though we didn’t appreciate it at the time. We learned about supply and demand, quality control, truth-in-advertising, and inventory control among other things.
While we didn’t consciously categorize the penny candy I have taken the liberty of putting some favorites into groups that might have represented the effect of selecting and purchasing the candy. These, mind you, are only a subset of what we took into consideration when making our selection. I have taken a certain amount of artistic liberty in arriving at these categories. As a disclaimer to the purists amongst us I have grouped true penny candies with some packaged candies and called them all penny candy. If you’re not comfortable with that, take your nostalgic Slo Poke and suck it while I continue!
For Lesson #1 we maintain that penny candy is mood altering. I can tell you’re alarmed but before you envision some unscrupulous vendor of drug-laced treats hear me out. Remember those ads with a muscle bound bully kicking sand in the face of a 98-pound weakling? When you were feeling like one of these tough guys you could buy a package of cigarettes. These were not the ones with a warning by the Surgeon General but rather a chalky tasting candy stick with pink dye on the tip. You would borrow your Dad’s old T-shirt, role the pack into the sleeve, and voila you were a James Dean look alike! If your mood demanded a more aggressive persona you might have gone with the bubble gum cigar complete with wrapper and band a la Al Capone. Who says this didn’t change your mood? Google “mood altering old fashioned penny candy” (use the quotes) and it is unlikely you will get any hits so it’s confirmed you didn’t learn Lesson #1 from Google.
Next we remember the tactical penny candy in Lesson #2. I can hear your nostalgic minds working overtime. Yes you’re right! Tactical penny candy was used primarily in the Saturday matinees at your local theater. In the middle of some action filled Roy Rogers movie it was not uncommon to hear jawbreakers flying through the air towards any number of unsuspecting targets. If you were a guy most often this was a group girls giggling when Dale Evans got too close to Roy Rogers or was it a Lone Ranger episode with Tonto getting too close to his horse? For those more economically conservative individuals, the weapon of choice was Boston Baked Beans or perhaps Red Hots since there were far more per penny spent then jawbreakers. Root Beer Barrels also fell into the economical category and were a nice compromise between the size of jawbreakers and Boston Baked Beans. Outdoors, Jujubes or DOTS made a nice choice for use in that ever-present slingshot hanging out of your back pocket. Easy to get a grip on and biodegradable too! Is Lesson #2 confirmed or busted? Definitely confirmed! Go ahead and Google “tactical old fashioned penny candy”. Again nary a hit.
When speaking of the economical penny candy category found in Lesson #3 one must give a nod to one of the giants of the category, Necco Wafers. Although they weren’t as tasty as things like a Zagnut bar, Bit-O-Honey or Walnettos nonetheless you felt good since you got a whole roll for five cents. If you were really fortunate you had a store that stocked the all chocolate Necco Wafers. Necco Wafers were a dual category penny candy that could serve in the economical class as well as the tactical class since they made darn good miniature Frisbees plus they didn’t collect lint when stored in your pocket. Your vote on Lesson #3? Confirmed? Busted? This has got to be confirmed. Any company that could make millions selling tasteless chalky discs to kids proves that kids were economical when it comes to penny candy. Again no Google hits on “economical old fashioned penny candy” but a bunch of Google ads did appear.
Lesson #4 is only for those who were fortunate to have a young sibling you ‘got’ to look after now and then there was the babysitting penny candy. By far and away the leader here was the candy dots on a long paper strip. Arm yourself with a bag of those and you could keep your kid sister or brother busy peeling off the paper that stuck to the back and eating for hours. One wonders how many trees worth of paper our siblings ate while becoming obsessed peeling off those dots! For the whiney youngster you could resort to giving them a mouthful of gummy DOTS. Who could cry with three of four of those in your mouth? If you didn’t have these on hand a BB Bat sucker or Kits taffy would do in an emergency. No question this one is confirmed. Google again missed lesson #4 on “babysitting old fashioned penny candy” with no hits.
Not forgetting the preteens there were penny candy choices for their more sophisticated tastes thus we have Lesson #5. Who could forget Teaberry, Beamans and Black Jack gum, Junior Mints, Chuckles, Smarties, Indian Brand Pumpkin Seeds, Chiclets and Milk Duds? If you were really on the ‘A’ list you might chose Sour Lemons, LifeSavers or the all too cool Sen-Sen. Sen-Sen was one of those guilty-by-association treats that automatically made your friends, and parents, think you were covering up the smell of forbidden booze or cigarettes! Did preteens realize the importance of penny candy? Definitely confirmed. By the way did you ever remove that package of Sen Sen from under your mattress? Lesson #5 is definitely confirmed and Google strikes out again with no hits on “preteen old fashioned penny candy”.
Finally one last category of penny candy. Lesson #6 is truly one of individual choice since it is the category of comfort food penny candy. You might resort to comfort treats if you were really having a good day and the pretty girl in the desk next to you acknowledged your existence or in gym class you finally shinnied up the rope to the ceiling. My comfort treats were the small, individually packaged pies about 3 inches in size and those ever-popular Hostess Snoballs with the coconut liberally sprinkled on top. Since the pies and Snoballs are my choice I say ‘Confirmed’. Google misses the (sno)ball again with no hits on “comfort food old fashioned penny candy”.
So what about the myth that search engines can find everything there is to know about a subject. Is the myth confirmed or busted? I say it’s BUSTED!
Oh yes, by way of explanation for the younger generation I need to go back to the start. What did I drink out of wax bottles? The flavored syrup in Nik-L-Nips, of course! The small wax bottles that you would bite off the top and swallow the flavored syrup inside. This was followed by chewing the bottle like gum. Why did I do it? Because it was so cool! Was this disposable packaging or what? If you have a yearning for some penny candy, including Nik-L-Nips, Google the phrase ‘penny candy’ for vendors or check Amazon.
Thanks for bearing with me on this nostalgic stroll down memory lane. Remember the lessons learned and don’t forget to wear your wax lips the next time I see you and keep in mind ‘wax lips sink ships’. Oh gosh, Google that and there are 5 hits. Back to the drawing board!
