If I had to choose one aspect of my childhood I consider to be the most defining, it would have to have been the seemingly never-ending quest for candy.  Candy dominated our lives 45, 50 years ago.  We were candy sleuths.  Or, more appropriately, candy addicts.  We would buy, beg, scam and, sadly, even steal to satisfy our candy jones.  Like spies preparing for invasion, we scoped out our territory carefully, sometimes employing stratagems worthy of the CIA.  We knew which of the elderly retirees on the block could be counted on for a handout from a dish of hard candies in exchange for a visit.  (Brach’s Cinnamon Disks were a favorite, but even butterscotch would do in a pinch.)  We knew which mom was a soft touch and which mom wasn’t.  In those days, even the worst free candy (That’s right; I’m talking about you, horehound drops!) was better than no candy at all.

We didn’t get allowances in those days — at any rate, none of us in our family and/or block ever got an allowance.  You could, however, pick up some extra spending money in exchange for chores like mowing the lawn or raking leaves or clearing snow off the porch in winter.  The payout was usually around 25 to 50 cents, tops.  But this was in the days of penny candy, so even 25 cents could go pretty far back then.  Perhaps the most egregious example of money-making scams was the time my next door neighbor and I bilked a few of the more gullible retirees in the next block out of three dollars.  He had gotten a Disney figurine-crafting set for Christmas one year, essentially four plastic molds of Disney characters, plaster of Paris, and a set of paints for finishing.  Once we had made six figurines he donned his Cub Scout uniform ( a touch that would have made Bret Maverick proud) and we proceeded to sell them for 50 cents apiece.  When asked why we were going door to door, we said simply and disingenuously, “We’re trying to raise money.”  We wanted plausible deniability in case their lawyers came calling.  At least we had enough conscience not to repeat this scam ever again.

So many of the candies we liked are no longer available in stores today, although a few may still be acquired online.  Bonomo Turkish Taffy was a flat placard of taffy roughly the size of a pocket comb.  Razzles were a strange candy-gum hybrid, a gum dry enough that it would crunch like candy at first bite, then as it warmed in your mouth would revert to its natural chewing gum state.  Yes, we bought them on purpose.  Necco wafers are still available for sale, although I’ve just recently read where the New England Confectionary Company is supposedly going out of business, so if you like discs of flavored, dried plaster, better stock up now.  Bub’s Daddy Bubble Gum was a rod of gum about a foot long, if you preferred your gum in inconvenient sizes.  Green apple flavor was the best.  Candy bars ran from 15 to as much as 25 cents apiece, so they were more of a luxury item.  But sometimes I just had to have a Marathon bar, chocolate-coated caramel in a lattice shape — no nougat, no nuts; nothing to get in the way of the chocolate and caramel.  Charleston Chews, a chocolate-coated bar of vanilla or chocolate taffy, are still in stores and are still a favorite treat 50 years on.

But it was penny candy that appealed to us most, for the obvious economic reasons.  Jaw breakers lasted a fairly long time, so they were worth buying.  But the best bargain was Now Or Later:  four small pieces of taffy individually wrapped in colored wax paper, then over-wrapped in cellophane, all for a penny.  They would probably run you a quarter apiece today.  Gumballs the size of jawbreakers were another favorite.  My favorite of these were the pale blue gumballs coated in granulated sugar and tasting of wintergreen.  Root Beer Barrels, eponymously flavored and shaped, were always welcome, as was Bazooka Joe gum, which came wrapped in a comic strip of bad puns.  Peanut butter-flavored Mary Janes weren’t a personal favorite of mine, but they would do in a pinch.  Nik-L-Nips, little wax bottles of some sort of sweet colored liquid that was almost certainly highly toxic, were also on our list back then, along with Sugar Daddy’s, Pixie Sticks and Chick-o-Sticks.  B.B.Bats were taffy on a stick (banana was my favorite, if you’re keeping score), and for ten cents you could get a paper strip of Dots, tiny half-spheres of sugar candy stuck so securely to the paper you either had to hold the strip in your mouth until the candy melted, or risk eating more paper than you probably intended to eat.  Beeman’s Pepsin Gum was vaguely medicinal, but still better than horehound drops, although my favorite chewing gum in stick form was Clove, with Teaberry a not-so-close second.  BlackJack was just licorice gum, for those of you who like that sort of thing.  Rock Candy Crystals were self-explanatory, but still much-loved.

I could go on in this vein for quite a while, and I’m sure I neglected to mention one of your favorites (Abba Zabba? Chunky?), but you get the idea.  Yesterday’s candies, like so many of our memories, are probably sweeter in the imagination now than they actually were way back when.