A Particular Friendship : Pre diet Years by Liz O'Neill |
In the pre-diet year era, for lack of space, our gang was bused to another school. My mouth was watering. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. A little van pulled into a space for our recess break. Just as with our other school, candy was for sale at recess.
Just as with our other school, this van had candy for sale at recess.
There was a delicious nougaty cinnamon red rocket-shaped delicacy. One of my friends let me sample one. I had never tasted anything like it. I couldn’t wait to bring my money. Imagining a whole school year of that treat made any sadness temporarily disappear. That was about a week before the dastardly diet was declared. *********
As with most farfetched pipedreams, the bad idea of me being on a diet quickly fizzled out. There was one fated day we had nothing in the house and I was craving something sweet. I implored Mother to find something similar to jam or jelly. I climbed the shelves ransacking the cupboard. I spotted a wonderful jar of molasses.
When I pulled it down Mother told me, "You will not like it." I wondered why she would tell me such an untruth. I pulled out the loaf of Sunbeam bread from the Sunbeam man, and fetched two thick slices of fresh-smelling white bread out of the bag.
My mouth was watering as I reached into the silverware drawer for a knife and dipped it into the jar of delectable-looking molasses. As I spread it across the bread, the shiny dark brown substance began to cover the bread. After smearing more onto the second slice, I slapped them together to make an even more tempting mouthful. And I did take a giant bite with giant anticipation.
My next dramatic response in between raspberry sounds and motions to clear my lips and tongue of any speck, ranted with the questions of why would anyone put that putrid sweet, dark substance in a jar? And what was it doing in our jelly pantry? Mother gently said, with a slight grin reaching her eyes, "Are you okay? I told you you would not like it. But you do have to do things on your own to discover the truth. This was not a very sweet truth was it?"
*******
I did however make up for this dearth of confectionery consumption when I was in junior high, especially at Halloween time. Trudy had a fireplace which served as an excellent source of soot for blackening their faces. A pillowcase was the fare for Teddy and Timmy along with Trudy and me to see how long it would take to fill them up. The timing always seemed to work for us as their houses lay on the middle line separating the southern and northern halves of our town.
Hustling around from house to house barely noticing the lights out…no more candy deadline, we managed to fill two pillowcases. Not bad for one night’s work.
***** Below is a poem I wrote about our adventures:
We Were Always Bums
The char from the fireplace chimney
Provided our costumes We were always bums We needed a big pillowcase
For our last prop to carry There was going to be candy aplenty We needed a big pillowcase The porch lights were on
We went door to door So long ago when we were young The porch lights were on The candy bars were giant
The neighbors were generous Our pillowcases were bulging The candy bars were giant Everything was going great
We saw it on the porch It was a scary ghost made of spiderwebs Everything was going great It was time to go home
No more porch lights were on It was getting scary now It was time to go home These tired ole bums
Have to trod miles home With heavy yummy filled pillowcases These tired ole bums Comparing and trading our stash
The thrill of having only the good ones To put away to eat a little each day Next year, we'll be bums ********
In the Novitiate, we were supposed to take only one piece of candy at recreation. Since they didn’t usually have my favorite, with the map on the inside cover, no one knew what flavor was what. One of the Sisters, wanting to make sure her one piece was a good one, used to punch a little hole in the bottom of each of the chocolates. She proceeded ‘til she got the one she wanted. This took the mystery out of it for all of us. I heard the verbal history passed down about the candy box rule. It seems there was an unexpected unsupervised power outage. Need I say more? When the lights came on, the previously nearly full box of chocolates turned up empty. To use an amusing example of wordplay. So much for blind obedience, which is usually related to the times we were told to perform a task that didn't necessarily make sense. To use a textbook example, watering a dead stick. In later years, where I lived, one of the Sisters, trying to cut down on eating candy, suggested that the others hide the goodies from her. All abided by her wishes, by eating from a certain box when she wasn’t around. Replacing the gold band gave the appearance the box had not yet been opened. We know deception always goes sideways. She must have had her eye on the box all along, because when there was need for a gift for someone, she suggested that box of candy. We each swallowed hard, sheepishly looking at each other, and confessed to eating most of the candy. The Sister shook the box and said, “From now on, I’m going to shake and take.” I had several run-ins with this same Sister and one involved a cousin to candy. Girl Scout cookies will be part of our next adventures to read.
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Liz O'Neill
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