Beaubien Stories - SPECIAL

Candy Store Memories from Josie

The best part of all of this reunion organizing has been the great stories I have heard - especially about the candy store. For me, it was just part of our family life - being the family business, we all took part in its running and it was an everyday thing for us. But so many of you have told me your memories - especially those about my Mom and Dad, which I truely appreciate.

While others had chores like clean the house and do the dishes, mine consisted of take out the empty bottles,(you know, the ones you use to find all over the neighborhood and bring in for your 2c worth of candy?) fill the pop cooler, put the stock on the shelves and burn the cardboard boxes and put candy in the candy counter (and of course sampling) We also worked in the store taking care of the customers - usually the candy counter (a responsibility that came later as we were old enough to do so). The working in the store had its ups and downs. . . sometimes great fun with our friends - but then there were the boys from our class who would come in and tease me or my sisters - usually a group of 5 or 6 to 1 shy girl - always under the watchful eye of my Dad, grabbing a cup of coffee in the back room. He would appear behind the counter just in the nick of time to rescue one of his daughters from dying of embarrassment.

The morning and afternoon rush were especially busy times - - but my Dad was good at getting the crowds out with his yell of “who’s next” “who’s next” and “Lets go, chop chop, the bell rang. . . get to school“. He would bang his hand on the counter in front of you, but put your change in another area - just to fool you - he was always a kidder. My mom was always concerned about the guys - whether it be getting you to eat something at least a little healthy or how you dressed. Guys with their slicked back hair - coming in on a cold winter morning with your hair frozen white on top of your head and your ears bright red. I remember her telling the boys constantly to put on hats, especially the patrol boys. . of course that would not be cool! Better to get frostbite instead! (trust me when I say, I had to wear a hat ALL the time - - suffering from continuous hat head throughout high school)

Here are some of the things I remember the most: Bazooka and Double Bubble gum - wrapped in comics - - did anyone ever send those things in and get anything?? Pretzel rods Long strings of red licorice (great to tie in knots and eat that way-seemed to taste better) Licorice records with hard candy middle (red with black candy - black with red) Marshmallow ice cream cones (and the more stale they got, the more chewy they were) Blue sputnik round bubble gums - right when sputnik was sent up (hey does any remember the neighborhood all going out and sitting in lawn chairs over on the sidewalk behind the school to watch “sputnik” go by in the sky - I remember as a kid watching for a Flash Gordon ship to appear and was disappointed to see a tiny light instead - felt ripped off)

Josie's Dad in front of the Candy Store

Green mint jellied candy leafs and Orange jellied slices

Lemon drops and boxes of Lemon Heads candy

Flying saucer candies

Smarties

Red dollars (which were a chewy red candy disk - that stuck in your teeth and I swear was the reason I had a zillion cavities)

Baseball cards, Football cards, monster cards - and lets not forget the Beatles cards that would sell out within an hour of arriving at the store. . we went through cases and cases of it that year. Charms candy and Lifesavers all flavors - tootsieroll pops - safety suckers with looped handles

Wax tubes with “juice” in them - - were all over the neighborhood sidewalks

Black Jack and clove gum along with the ever Popular Juicy Fruit and Teaberry gum (remember the Teaberry shuffle?)

Trick gum packs that when you pulled out the piece of gum you would get a thing snap on your finger.

Fake barf , spiders, snakes - green army soldiers in bags

Coconut candy slices - ones that looked like bacon (yes, I said bacon) and others that looked like watermelon - they both tasted the same - like coconut.

Smith brothers and Ludens cherry cough drops - - the only thing you could “legally” eat in school - - Jerry Miceli and Don S. Johnson sat near me - I think I was their cough drop drug dealer all through eighth grade.

Vicks cough drops - so strong that you couldn’t have them in your mouth for long

Red hots, Mike and Ikes, Boston Baked Beans, and don’t forget the Milk Duds. .

Snickers, Mars bars, butterfingers, Hersheys chocolate, Nestles crunch, Almond joy and Mounds (sometimes you feel like a nut - sometimes you don't)

Candy Cigarettes

Candy lipsticks

Little plastic rings

Bags of planters peanuts - and don’t forget those pistachio nuts with the red coloring that would come off on your hands (Nick Z’s favorite)

Hostess cupcakes (is it me, or weren’t they bigger and better back then)

Twinkies (ditto to Hostess cupcakes)

Snowballs, little mini pies, little mini pound cakes

Cupcake advertising display - always did something - moving all the time. .

Popsicles, (favorite flavor coconut or grape for me) Fudgsicles, Creamsicles, Push ups - all 7c each Remember the raspberry push ups and the strawberry creamsicles Or were they called dreamsicles . .

Ice cream cups 10c Ice cream cones with nuts 10c Jays and New Era (now Lays) Potato chips in small bags for 5c each. Barbeque chips (so hot they burned)

Taffy apples

12 oz pop was 10c plus 2c deposit - remember Kayo in bottles? You would need 2 or 3 bottles to quench your thirst.

Upper Ten Pop, Shasta, Diet Rite - it came out then - 1st diet cola tasted terrible!

Crush in grape cherry, strawberry - not just orange

Old colony pop in quart bottles - loved the black cherry - use to have it with ice cream on hot days

Little bottles of squirt in swirl bottles (we had a guy in the neighborhood, Mr. Wilson, who would come in each morning and he would eat a dill pickle and drink a bottle of squirt - I heard he lived to a ripe old age - - maybe that‘s the magic combination for living a long life)

Sanford paints in a 10 or 12 pack - - the magenta color has special meaning for me - I once painted a yellow house and put magenta curtains in the windows in Mrs. Moore’s class - - she walked around the room and saw my painting and laughed loudly telling me, what kind of person would put magenta curtains on a yellow house! Hey, had to use that paint for something! You always had to have new paint for the new school year .

Pencil sharpeners shaped like world globes.

zip up 3 ring binders with the map of the world on the outside. . I think there were other designs, but that's the only one I remember

College rule notebook paper (the lines were so close together - you could hardly write anything - and most teachers outlawed its use)

plastic pencil boxes with tops that slid open - they always got jammed

Pencil bags that fit into your binder. . by the end of the year the rings would split or the zipper would break and you would lose your pencils

#2 pencils (yellow) and the black warrior pencils

Venus colored pencils (hey, how many of you did those pictures by number with them)

Crayolas with the crayola sharpener box.

Compasses and protractors - always got those two confused - but I guess those compasses were good carving tools - from what I hear . . .

scripto lead “mechanical” pencils - you could see through the barrels to the spring mechanism. . . so was it me, or did that lead constantly fall out?

Cartridge Pens I specifically remember the boys having ink stains in their shirt pockets - and some of the guys taking the cartridges and squirting the ink out for fun.

Paste jars with little brushes that got all gummed up after one use (or kids in your class who would take gobs of paste and eat it!!! Icky!!)

Elmer's glue - you spread it on your hands and you could peel it off like skin.

Bottles of yellow glue with rubber applicator tops - - did they really make that stuff from horse hoofs?

Glitter - dumping it all over the place at home and at school - didn’t much matter at school, but got into food clothing , the family pet, wouldn‘t come out of the carpet . .

Comic books in plastic packages with the covers torn off - I once knew why - but don’t remember now.

Swanson TV dinners and pot pies and jiffy pop popcorn and kraft cheese in a jar

The glow of the Hawthorn Mellody Ice cream sign in the store window.

My dad walking in the Beaubien Halls on Party Day with ice cream deliveries - it was party time!

Thanks for the memories! Josie