Candy Dish
In my simple, childish mind, I always put my grandparents in two categories: farm and town. My maternal grandparents lived in a white clapboard farmhouse in Edna, Texas. My grandpa was a cotton farmer and my grandmother was the farmer's wife. Perhaps my adult obsession with food was germinated at that farm house, because I have vivid memories of the kitchen table being covered in pecans during the fall and with cantaloupes during the summer. If I close my eyes right now, I can feel the soft, gray-black dirt between my 4 year old toes as I run along the rows of cantaloupe asking, "Is this one ready to be picked yet?"
I loved their house, and I will always associate the smell of a gas stove with their kitchen. Whenever I step on a concrete floor, I remember the cool concrete that supported the washing machine and the dryer in the lean-to attached to their home. The squeak of hinges and the slamming of a screen door will always cause me to remember running in and out of their house. Pecan trees, swings, and all night card games with aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, fourth cousins twice removed, and all other in between are tucked into my book of childhood memories.
The parlor of the farmhouse was the "good room." The room where you didn't put your feet on the furniture and you most certainly did not bring a popsicle. It was home to a blonde, upright piano, a light mauve, angular sofa set, a coffee table with deadly sharp edges, and a cut glass candy dish that was always full of Brach Pick-a-Mix. When my grandmother passed away, I took the chair that was part of the sofa set. It sits in the garage, legless, and someday I will finally get around to getting it recovered. My brother owns the coffee table, and he probably will until he gets married and his first child gashes their head open on one of its angular corners. My mother has the candy dish, and it sits on an antique secretary from my paternal grandmother.
That candy dish holds many memories. It is made out of cut glass, not particularly valuable, and if I looked really hard, I am sure I could find a brother or sister to it in one of the many junk shops in town. It has a distinct clink when you lift the lid, and many a summer afternoon was wiled away as we tried to sneak a butterscotch or a coconut neapolitan or a jelly nougat out of the dish without making any noise. Inevitably, someone would hear the clink and yell, "Kids, get your hands outta that candy dish!" And we would slam the lid down and run outside (slamming the screen door), usually with a piece of candy in our grimy little hands.
Yesterday I was at the grocery store and there was a Brach Pick-A-Mix stand near the produce section. I was so struck by it. I can't explain why, but I walked around it at least four times, taking in how it has and has not changed. They still make the white, waxy, jewel studded jelly nougats; the pink and brown neapolitans are the same. There are more sugar free offerings now, and sour jelly worms for the younger generation. You can even put your change into the small lockbox and get a sample, three pieces for a quarter. I remember begging my mom for a nickel to buy one. I loaded up. Jelly nougats, butterscotch, neapolitans, cinnamon disks, caramels, and orange slices all went into a paper bag. I ate four or five pieces in the car driving home, and then deposited the rest into a crystal candy dish on our coffee table. I felt better just looking at it.
I don't know that I will eat any more of that candy. It will probably go stale in a few weeks and I will have to pry it out of the dish, but yesterday, of all days, was the day that I wanted a little bit of childhood simplicity and a happy memory. I will never forget standing in the hallway next to my classroom door trying to digest the news that a plane had hit the Pentagon and then two more hit the twin towers. I will also never forget having to watch with a classroom full of freshman as the towers came down before our eyes. Try explaining what a terrorist is to a naive 14 year old. Try explaining to all of their idealistic, adolescent minds that there are people in the world who hate their country, hate their freedom, hate them. For a brief moment yesterday, I was able to put away that memory I have recalled nearly every day for the past five years, and remember being five years old. It put a little bit of sweetness into a bitter day.
I loved their house, and I will always associate the smell of a gas stove with their kitchen. Whenever I step on a concrete floor, I remember the cool concrete that supported the washing machine and the dryer in the lean-to attached to their home. The squeak of hinges and the slamming of a screen door will always cause me to remember running in and out of their house. Pecan trees, swings, and all night card games with aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, fourth cousins twice removed, and all other in between are tucked into my book of childhood memories.
The parlor of the farmhouse was the "good room." The room where you didn't put your feet on the furniture and you most certainly did not bring a popsicle. It was home to a blonde, upright piano, a light mauve, angular sofa set, a coffee table with deadly sharp edges, and a cut glass candy dish that was always full of Brach Pick-a-Mix. When my grandmother passed away, I took the chair that was part of the sofa set. It sits in the garage, legless, and someday I will finally get around to getting it recovered. My brother owns the coffee table, and he probably will until he gets married and his first child gashes their head open on one of its angular corners. My mother has the candy dish, and it sits on an antique secretary from my paternal grandmother.
That candy dish holds many memories. It is made out of cut glass, not particularly valuable, and if I looked really hard, I am sure I could find a brother or sister to it in one of the many junk shops in town. It has a distinct clink when you lift the lid, and many a summer afternoon was wiled away as we tried to sneak a butterscotch or a coconut neapolitan or a jelly nougat out of the dish without making any noise. Inevitably, someone would hear the clink and yell, "Kids, get your hands outta that candy dish!" And we would slam the lid down and run outside (slamming the screen door), usually with a piece of candy in our grimy little hands.
Yesterday I was at the grocery store and there was a Brach Pick-A-Mix stand near the produce section. I was so struck by it. I can't explain why, but I walked around it at least four times, taking in how it has and has not changed. They still make the white, waxy, jewel studded jelly nougats; the pink and brown neapolitans are the same. There are more sugar free offerings now, and sour jelly worms for the younger generation. You can even put your change into the small lockbox and get a sample, three pieces for a quarter. I remember begging my mom for a nickel to buy one. I loaded up. Jelly nougats, butterscotch, neapolitans, cinnamon disks, caramels, and orange slices all went into a paper bag. I ate four or five pieces in the car driving home, and then deposited the rest into a crystal candy dish on our coffee table. I felt better just looking at it.
I don't know that I will eat any more of that candy. It will probably go stale in a few weeks and I will have to pry it out of the dish, but yesterday, of all days, was the day that I wanted a little bit of childhood simplicity and a happy memory. I will never forget standing in the hallway next to my classroom door trying to digest the news that a plane had hit the Pentagon and then two more hit the twin towers. I will also never forget having to watch with a classroom full of freshman as the towers came down before our eyes. Try explaining what a terrorist is to a naive 14 year old. Try explaining to all of their idealistic, adolescent minds that there are people in the world who hate their country, hate their freedom, hate them. For a brief moment yesterday, I was able to put away that memory I have recalled nearly every day for the past five years, and remember being five years old. It put a little bit of sweetness into a bitter day.
posted by pastorschick at
7:55 AM
1 Comments:
I remember that house, too! Only I carried in a little boy who got loved and cared for by the people who lived there. I can smell the coffee, and taste the coffeecake. And I remember sitting in that pink chair after being treated for a severe sunburn. Mostly I remember the very special people who made that house come alive with their love and genuine down home hospitality.
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