Flashback Friday # 178

Grown-up's Candy

A warm welcome to all the weary travelers who have stumbled upon my little plot of cyberspace. I hope you are able to recover from your weariness in the short time you spend here reading my drivel. Hopefully you won't be so refreshed that you will run screaming from here.

But enough with the formalities. Today's post is about candy. Easter is just around the corner and all the young-uns will have Easter baskets brimming with sweet treats. Who doesn't like candy? Alas, All candy isn't created equal. There's some candy, when I was growing up, I could pass up without any remorse.

My Paternal grandparents in Westerville were big candy eaters. The only problem is that the candy that they liked was nasty. Before Granddad died, you could find all sorts of individually wrapped hard candy in his desk. He would take the box it came in and dump it into the desk drawers. As a little kid, that candy in the desk was not just tempting, it was overwhelming. One day, I snuck one of those candies out when nobody was looking. I quickly unwrapped it and popped it into my mouth. Eewwwyuck!!! It was the black coffee candy. I NEVER snuck any more of Granddad's candy.

Grandma was just as bad. After Easter, she would raid the stores for her favorite candy. She would buy bags of it. She also hid it in Granddad's desk (you'd think I would have learned not to eat anything from Granddad's desk). If you opened either of the middle drawers down the side, you could almost always find a bag of black jelly beans. She would buy whole bags of just black ones. I got gutsy, and decided to try one. Bad idea, it was gross. I never have been fond of black licorice. My grandson "The Boy", loves black jelly beans. He would have gotten along well with his great-great grandmother.

The other candy I encountered as a kid that put me off was horehound. It was one of the few candies that Dad absolutely loved. After all, if your dad is eating coffee candy & your mom is eating black jellybeans, shouldn't you have a taste for strange things? Whenever he would get a bag, I would tell myself, "It's candy. Says so right on the bag." I just couldn't keep it in my mouth after putting it there. I could never remember what it was called either. I remember calling it "horedog candy" once (hound, dog, they're the same, right?)My taste buds have changed a bit and I can now take it or leave it. However, I've never purchased a bag for my own consumption.

Is there a candy that really turns you off?