Borderline candy
The candy bar I wanted was a conglomeration I purchased only once, at Rulon Gardner's gas station and diner, in Wyoming, I think, about four years ago. You may remember Gardner, not as a reality TV star, but as the unlikely and quiet Olympic hero/dairy farmer who won gold in Greco-roman wrestling. He took his money and bought the gas station/diner, which was a shrine to all things Rulon Gardner. This candy was something from Boise that was a chocolate/peanut-covered glob in a wrapper that looked like a hot mess, but was delicious. We stopped on the way back to Salt Lake after a day of sightseeing, and I asked where it came from. The clerk said a delivery truck came from Boise every so often and it was a small, family-run business. Nothing on the Internet at the time, and no shipments. In reality, that was the best thing, really. I'd be bankrupted like Rulon Gardner, eating those candy blobs, whatever they were.
So the Idaho Spud, which must be popular somewhere, or the candy shop in Rhode Island wouldn't have had it, along with Skyway bars, Necco wafers and penny candies, and even individually wrapped jelly beans. I looked at a pack of Chuckles and snickered (not chuckled) and told my sister, "Those are disgusting. They bring back memories of the candy machine (an old college-age job) with nothing left but those awful things." And those wafer candies seemed more like a punishment than a treat. I suppose to the generations before us, they were tasty and had an appeal. I suppose.
But they must have resonated with someone, somewhere, or else they'd still not make them. Or the shelf life on them could read "you should live so long," to borrow a punch line from a Jay Leno joke.
Ask people my age and older to name candies of our youth and the first thing I'll say would be circus peanuts. My Grandpa Hauenstein had them, in abundance. Today, I could eat about one peanut every five years and be content, just out of nostalgia. He had an elkhound named Jezebel and he fed her circus peanuts till she popped. At my grandpa's funeral 18 years ago, an aunt read a list of all of the candies he had in his cupboard at any given time. The grandchildren's eyes were moist and we had a faraway look, while nodding and smiling, lost in some sugar-coated memory. He also had those awful pink lozenges that for some reason, people somewhere eat. I'd rather eat Chuckles, if given a choice. Last year, at Christmas, a tableful of cousins sat and laughed as we talked about grandpa and his candy, and who was privileged to eat the good stuff, and who got the, um, pink lozenges.
For about a hundred years, my dad had Paydays and Zagnuts in his lunchbox. My mom said they were the only candy bars that didn't melt. I don't think he's had one in about 20 years or so. Who could blame him?
My father inherited my grandpa's sweet tooth. He turned us on to the good stuff, like Heggy's chocolates, which are a sin wrapped in cellophane. However, for folks in my neck of the woods, Heggy's also has that nostalgia and must-have appeal, as evidenced by the long lines around Christmas and Easter. I doubt if the Chuckles store has long lines. Forget about the Necco wafers.
Another candy Grandpa Hauenstein had that we loved was a white paper bag of Brach's Pick-A-Mix candies. I loved those toffees and the little pink, white and brown coconut caramels. He got them on Thursdays when he went to the Kidron Auction. He always had butterscotch discs in the pockets of his overalls, ready to hand out to waiting grandchildren. I had one not long after he died and was in tears as soon as it hit my tongue. I've not had any since. The power of that candy memory was too strong.
These days, kids have strange, sugary dipping powders and other weird stuff. I know this because I have bought it for students and my niece and nephew, and they go nuts for sugar-coated sugar. They don't play with their Smarties; they gulp them down and want more. I can't imagine too many grandparents pulling out packets of Sour Patch Kids or those dipping powder packets and saying, "Here you go, kids, Grandma has a treat for you!" However, I could be wrong. Hopefully, they don't pull out a pack of Chuckles, either.
To be fair, my beloved Uncle Tony always gave us those shopping register-tape things with little colored dots on them, that were pure sugar, and we'd gnaw them off of the register tape. He bought them at the City News in Wooster. I saw them at the Rhode Island candy store, even some in a bigger, uber-register that looked like old dot-matrix computer paper with huge nickel-sized blobs of sugar for modern kids to gnaw off. I don't know what caused the fleeting moment of thinking about buying some, but I did pass them up.
I'm sitting here, looking at the Idaho Spud wrapper, wondering about our ability to fixate emotions and memories on something that tastes like chocolate-covered, wet Styrofoam. I did some digging, and found online the exact candy bar I wanted, called Old Faithful. It's made by the same company that makes the famous Idaho Spud candy bar. I smiled as I looked at the Owyhee website, noting somewhere, someone is having not-so-nostalgic thoughts about Old Faithful, and wishing for an Idaho Spud instead.