Candy Bar Memories

I mentioned once before that I test software for a living, and when we do our final testing before a software release goes out our group gets some candy to keep our spirits up and keep us going. We usually get a few bags of the “fun size” bars (why those little ones are called fun size, I’m not sure; I’d have more fun eating a regular size candy bar) and sometimes some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Without sounding like an old man with the “Back in my day…” speech, the candy today just doesn’t measure up. At least not in my mind.

I used to absolutely love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. After not eating any for a long time, I had some two times. Both times I had them, they were poor excuses for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The chocolate had the look and feel of plastic, although it did still taste like chocolate. I wonder if I held it in my hand, would it melt. Then what passes for peanut butter today is this dry, grainy stuff. Disappointing would be an understatement. I know they could make it like they used to because we bought some peanut butter cups from Trader Joe’s and there was a huge difference. No plastic on the outside and real peanut butter on the inside.

One of my other all-time favorites is Snickers bars. My complaints against them are that they are much smaller than they used to be, the chocolate on the outside is paper thin and the layer with peanuts and caramel is skimpy at best. As with the Reese’s, they are disappointing. I know, I know, things change. I know the argument that they’re cutting costs by doing what they’re doing. And I know that some people may even think, “Who cares? It’s just a stupid candy bar!” But think about it for a moment. Don’t we all have pleasant memories of eating candy bars? I do and here are two things I think of when I eat candy.

The first goes back to my childhood. At Halloween, we could take a little candy for our private stash and the rest went into a community bowl for the family and under the control of Mom. I would always take as many Snickers bars as I could. However, since they were limited I devised a way to make them last longer. I didn’t just take huge bites out of them and be done in a minute or two. Oh, no. Not me. I took my time and enjoyed them. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed every layer of them. How did I do that, you may ask. By eating the layers one at a time. (NOTE: The squeamish may skip the next paragraph. Parental discretion is advised.)

First I would eat all the chocolate off the sides, the ends and the bottom by carefully biting off small pieces and letting them melt in my mouth; I did not attempt to eat the chocolate off the top at this time. Next I would slowly eat the nougat center, being careful to not bite into the caramel and peanuts. By this point, which could be anywhere from 20 – 30 minutes later,  I was left with a piece of funky looking caramel, peanuts and the chocolate on top of that layer. It was like seeing a chicken ripped open and seeing the insides! You may not want to eat it after seeing that. Just knowing that it grossed out my sister was enough to make me want to continue eating my Snickers bar that way. However, it tasted great eating the individual parts and it lasted a lot longer than eating it the conventional way. Only after I was sure that all the nougat was gone did I slowly eat the final stage (and what I considered the best part!) – the caramel, peanuts and top layer of chocolate. Yum!

The second memory comes from when my wife and I lived in California. We lived there for about 18 months and were pretty much broke the whole time we were out there. My in-laws were horrified when they came out to visit us and saw how little food we had in the house and how thin we had gotten because of that. There were no extras. Well, one time we found an extra 50 cents and we went next door to the convenience store and bought a candy bar…to split…between the two of us. We ate that candy bar like we’d never had one before and we savored every small bite we took. We each ate our half slowly, enjoying the flavors rolling across our tongues, feeling like if that was the last candy bar we ever bought, we were going to enjoy it. And we did. Believe it or not, that is one of my happiest memories of our time in California. Forget the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, forget all the “beautiful people”, forget the sunny-almost-every-day lifestyle. That one day, sitting in our apartment, broke, my wife and I shared a candy bar and a memory that we will never forget. We may not have had much, but we had each other.

We all know that too much candy isn’t good for you, but here’s something a lot of us forget. Sometimes just a little candy, eaten slowly and with happiness, is just enough.

Trick or Treat

Halloween is just not as fun as it used to be. There was a time when my wife and I were the young couple in the neighborhood and our kids were the little ones. We’d take them around the neighborhood and everyone would say how cute they were – my son in his Sponge Bob, Woody and Vampire (way before Twilight ushered in the vampire phenomena) costumes, and my daughter in her Pocahontas, Dorothy and Minnie Mouse costumes. Now we’re the “old” couple with the older kids and we marvel at how cute all the little kids are. It’s kind of sad, one kid in college and another in high school and we’re relegated to the over-the-hill gang.

In the neighborhood we live in now, all the kids grew up at once. We used to have tons of kids walking around the streets and coming to our house, now we get about 15 or 20 kids. And half of them aren’t even from our neighborhood. But the little kids are still so cute! Especially when the kids do what kids do and not what the parents want them to do. One mother was trying to do the polite thing and get her little girl to say thank you. “Do you have something to say?” asked the mother. After no response, the mother asked again, “Don’t you want to say something?” The girl, starting to walk away, turned around and gave one of those irresistibly cute little kid smiles and said, “See you later!” Totally innocent and totally cute.

We had a great neighborhood for trick-or-treating when I was growing up. Nobody had a huge yard so the houses were kind of tightly packed together, which was great when we were little because we could do both sides of half the street in a relatively short amount of time and have enough candy to last for weeks. Well, that is, if we could have kept all our candy. When we got home we were allowed to keep some of the candy and the rest went into a big bowl that Mom was in charge of. I don’t remember how much we could keep for ourselves, but it was somewhere between not enough and too little. Nevertheless, we’d choose what we wanted for our private stash and Mom would either approve it or make us put more into the community bowl. You would have thought we were hoarding gold instead of Snickers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and M&M’s. I always knew exactly how many of each type I had, just in case someone tried to steal one of my prizes. I don’t think that ever happened, but I just didn’t trust my older brothers. Sorry guys. 

When we got older and were able to go out on our own, we did our street and the next street over. Whoa baby, did we get a lot of candy! We got a little smarter as we got older, too. We ate some of the best stuff before we went home and had to give up most of the good stuff. We even got creative a couple of years and would go around once, mix and match our costumes, and go around again. Of course, most of the neighbors knew what we were doing and would give us the “Haven’t I already seen you tonight?” speech and not give us more. Back then, everybody knew everybody in the neighborhood, so even with costumes they knew who we were. However, there were a few neighbors who gave us more anyway and we added to our loot.

I vaguely remember what our costumes were like back then. I remember wearing a Casper the Ghost costume for a couple of years, which was a cheap pullover with one of those plastic masks that made your face sweat even if it was 30 degrees that night. I think I went out as a baseball player one year, which meant putting on my team jersey and hat and carrying my glove. Low cost or no cost costumes were the rule. I also remember going out as a girl when I was about 10 years old, borrowing my sister’s skirt, tights and shirt, and using the smaller end of L’eggs eggs for a chest. I wore a wig, too, but I have no idea where that came from. I never did that again because a couple of my friends were looking at me in an extremely creepy way all night. It kind of made my skin crawl.

Back in the present, the trick-or-treaters stopped coming fairly early and we were left with half of the candy we bought, even after we were giving out multiples to everybody and me and my son had a couple of pieces ourselves. The fun was over before it began. Sure, there were a couple of cute kids that came by, but there was just something missing. A terribly scary thought has just crossed my mind and I can’t believe I’m even thinking about it, but maybe when we have grandkids Halloween will be fun again. Until then I’ll just have to reminisce about how incredibly cute my own kids were on Halloween. Even as I marvel at how they've grown into pretty incredible young adults.