Childhood Sweets (of several sorts)
The May blog-along theme at Blogger's Paradise is "memories of sweets you loved as a child". The intended meaning of "sweets", for us non-Brits, is candy, so that's where I'll start. I don't remember the name of one of my favorites, but it consisted of little tiny wax bottles that were filled with brightly colored, extremely sweet liquid. You bit off the top and sipped out the liquid. Then I, at any rate, chewed on the wax for a while - not quite gum, but part of the experience. In my memory the little bottles were shaped just like a Coke bottle (this was before soda pop came in cans), and came in a tiny version of the cardboard six packs that held the real thing. Maybe I'm just imagining this, though. At any rate I do remember that a large part of the appeal was the miniature nature of the little bottles. On the other hand, the wax must have been a draw, too, because another favorite "sweet" was the wax lips that appeared in the Ben Franklin every year a couple of weeks before Halloween. You wore them clamped between your own lips for a while, then again chewed them like gum. They smelled wonderful to me, and tasted almost as good as they smelled. Of course I also chewed on birthday candles, and occasionally took I bite out of the bar of paraffin my Mom kept in the kitchen (presumably for topping jelly jars, though I don't recall her ever making jelly). Hmmm, as I write, I'm starting to sound to myself like a strange child with a wax fixation.
**********************
Another sort of "sweet" I adored as a child was the scent of lilacs. There was a hedge of five or six bushes along one side of our back yard.
I do believe the lilac bush was one of the major reasons we bought this house. Right now, I have all the windows at the back of the house open, and the scent gusts in with the breeze. Heaven can wait.
****************************
Stretching the definition even further, to pull in at least a little knitting content, I'm thinking the third baby blanket is looking rather sweet if I do say so myself.
9 comments:
I never quite understood the appeal of the little wax bottles and wax lips. I knew kids who really got into them, but they didn't do it for me. Malted milk eggs were my favorite.
The blanket looks very sweet, indeed!
BTW, we're moving Last Sat Knitting to 2 in the afternoon, so maybe you can make it sometime? It'd be great to meet you.
What a lovely post....waxing lyrical about it..LOL.
I do remember the little bottles, shaped like Coca-Cola bottles, and full of variously colored sugar water. And the big red wax lips.
It's hard to remember which treat was my favorite, but I think it must have been Push-ups (right name??). They were orange sherbet in a cardboard tube (about the size of the tube in toilet paper), with cardboard under the sherbet and a wooden stick. You could push the sherbet up and eat it that way, with less mess than ice cream cones.
At the movies it was Jujubes!
Nik-l-nips. (not sure of the spelling.) I don't know why I know this - I have never had them!
This is an indication of why no one will play Trivial Pursuit against me anymore...
My favourite "sweets" memory was going to the cottage as a kid, and getting to the marina. While the parents loaded up the boat, each kid got 50 cents for the penny candy counter. Jawbreakers, licorice babies, jelly beans, bubble gum... yum.
They were Nik-L-Nips! Thank Sandra.
I think Push ups are still around. Now I'm on a mission to find some.
I LOVE the baby blanket! Lovely!
Sandra...you know it's Nik-L-Nips because you see the factory (?) at the side of the 400 :)
I remember all the candies and sweets that people have named here! Guess that makes me (and them) older than dirt. Although definitely better-looking :-)
I strongly remember going to the sweet shop with my grandad and he bought me pearl drops, rhubarb and custard, sherbet and pineapple rock. It used to be ace, its a shame that children nowadays dont get the chance to go into a traditional sweet shop and pick things for themselves.
Post a Comment