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Post by rikita on Jan 29, 2010 1:44:31 GMT
i see...
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Post by lola on Jan 29, 2010 1:45:20 GMT
Love your Stuckey's story, bixa.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 29, 2010 3:54:20 GMT
Kimby ~~ you're a genius ~~ I love you! Wow. I am awash in memories. My grandfather & uncle had a general store. On the grocery side, next to the big brass cash register, there was a small wood and glass showcase for candy. I can see the Zero bars in the case as I write this, along with the Tom's cookies in their glass jars on top of the case. There was also another candy I can't find on Kimby's link, maybe because I can't remember the name correctly. It was a box of some kind of large bon bons in the domed shape of croquettes, and covered with waxy chocolate concealing an excruciatingly sweet white nougat. These were sold individually. The box had a picture of strolling belles with hoop skirts and parasols, accompanied I believe by their dandies. There were also moon pies and the usual Hershey's array. A random memory just floated up as I wrote the above -- butted up to the candy case was a short narrow group of shelves. I can remember that the junket and the liquid smoke were on those shelves. Lola -- thanks for the compliment. For some reason, it made me remember my mother fussing at us, saying we'd never learn anything from travel, because we were always playing on the floor of the car or fighting with each other.
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Post by cristina on Jan 29, 2010 5:11:10 GMT
Bixa, the reason that you were disappointed with the Zero Bars is because you never had them frozen. That's the way my local shop sold them when I was little and I had forgotten how much I loved them until I saw that photo. Of course, I was only allowed to have one a year.
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Post by Kimby on Jan 29, 2010 5:12:39 GMT
I loved frozen Milkshake candy bars, which were sold at the local A&W Root Beer drive-in. Unfortunately, they are also discontinued, along with Snirkles, another favorite of mine.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 30, 2010 18:10:11 GMT
Frozen candy ... hard-frozen anything ... not for me, thanks.
I had to look up Snirkles. It's a good thing that they're not widely known, because the word cries out to have a meaning attached to it. Perhaps it's a poorly concealed chuckle combined with a smirk?
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Post by bjd on Jan 30, 2010 19:00:25 GMT
The name Snirkles made me think of Bixa's occasional *snork*. Definitely not a good name for candy.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 30, 2010 20:42:50 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2010 11:41:55 GMT
I often wonder how one is able to get a job naming products,(pharmaceuticals in particular,I would love THAT job!) Bixa,you may have missed your calling!
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Post by lola on Feb 2, 2010 20:19:36 GMT
Another childhood disappointment: never figuring out how to fly.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2010 8:00:57 GMT
When my mother was a little girl, my grandfather would come back from work and sometimes he would have in his possession that most exotic of items in a rural pre-war European village -- a bunch of bananas. She always wanted to know where he got them, and he told her that he had a secret banana tree in the middle of the woods just beyond the village, the Bois de Ponty. He would pick the bananas there himself. She said she spent hours and hours wandering through those woods, tearing her dress, muddying her shoes and yet in spite of all of her efforts, she never found that banana tree.
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Post by gertie on Mar 11, 2010 15:23:32 GMT
When I was little my dad said spaghetti grew on trees in Mississippi, knowing it would be dusky as we passed through. He was thereby able to point to the kudzu climbing over trees and proclaim it spaghetti plants. My greatest disappointment as a child came in summer between Junior and Senior year. I worked all summer for two years prior and even in the winter to earn my money, and took the required three years of French classes so that I could join the Circle Francais summer trip to France, carefully placing the money into the savings account started for me as a tot by my grandmother. I was so devastated when they told me at the bank the account had been closed a few weeks earlier by my mother, who had had to take the last of the money to pay bills as my father had been laid off from work. She kept hoping he would find work before they had to tell me and did not realize the deposit was due so early so did not know I would be going to the bank to pick up the first part of the money that day. Happily I finally made it to France 18 years later, and I certainly savored that trip.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 11, 2010 16:38:39 GMT
gertie - are you aware of this? - Panorama - April Fool's Day Hoax - Spaghetti Harvest - 1st April 1957
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Post by gertie on Mar 11, 2010 23:06:32 GMT
Oooooh Mark! Perfect!
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 12, 2010 2:20:50 GMT
I liked the detail of "I'm sure all of you have seen pictures of the vast spaghetti plantations in Italy." I wonder how many people were lulled into believing that they had indeed seen such pictures.
Gertie, your story was more than disappointment, it was really heartbreaking. You must have been stunned to find the money gone, but your poor mother! your poor father!
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Post by gertie on Mar 12, 2010 7:17:07 GMT
Yes, it has taken me a few years to see rather their side of things, but as a parent myself...so hard to disappoint the kiddies!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2010 20:59:23 GMT
What a shame that such care is no longer taken to prepare April Fool's reports now.
As for disappointing children, I think that children are far more disappointed when one tries to hide the hardships of life from them until disaster strikes. They prefer to suffer with their parents rather than find out that their parents have lied to them.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 12, 2010 21:35:26 GMT
Not trying to be contentious, Kerouac, but on what do you base that statement? You say "until disaster strikes", but in such cases the parents are concealing the hardships in the hope that things will get better before disaster strikes. Otherwise, they're causing their kids to live in what could turn out to be groundless dread.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2010 21:52:57 GMT
Children live in constant fear and terror of all sorts of things. Didn't you ever go to school? Wasn't there a monster under your bed? Family problems seem minor in comparison.
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Post by rikita on Mar 12, 2010 21:55:07 GMT
i think it depends, really. telling your child that a relative has gone on vacation, when in fact they have died, would probably very much make the child feel lied to when they realize the truth. on the other hand, constantly telling them what bad things could happen, will make the child and unable to develop trust, i think...
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Post by rikita on Mar 12, 2010 21:58:31 GMT
actually, kerouac, i think often the terrors kids live in are a projection of the fear they feel around them. and some of the bad things of the real world might just freak them out even more - like after our teacher told us about nuclear bombs and about how the americans want to kill us, i panicked each time i heard an airplane over the house... i am pretty sure not knowing about bombs quite yet would have helped me to a few nights of better sleep...
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 12, 2010 22:15:06 GMT
Exactly, Rikita.
Children pretty much know they're powerless, and they need to think that their parents or other trusted adults are taking care of things. If disaster should strike, it can be explained to the child in a way appropriate to the child's understanding. Setting a child up to be worried and anxious serves no purpose.
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Post by spindrift on Mar 13, 2010 20:13:14 GMT
Boarding school ensured I was fearful a lot of the time.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2010 5:49:45 GMT
Fear-mongering adults and truthful adults are not at all the same thing.
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Post by rikita on Mar 15, 2010 21:55:42 GMT
no one said they were. but i think constantly going on about problems that aren't even there, is fear-mongering in a way. like, of course if the parents lose their jobs, let's say, they should tell the child rather than lying and pretending all is fine. but telling the child beforehand all the time that the parents might lose their job will just make the child scared, possibily for no reason.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2010 21:04:45 GMT
It was this time of year and our family always went clothes shopping for our Easter/springtime clothes. I really,really wanted this bright red hat as my Easter hat,to wear to church. My mother would not let me get it. She told me that it wouldn't be appropriate to wear to the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday and that "someday",I would understand. I, to this day,do not understand why I could not have that hat.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2010 21:27:32 GMT
There's a bunch of purple during Lent, isn't there? If the hat had been purple, it would have been fine.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2010 23:26:44 GMT
There's a bunch of purple during Lent, isn't there? If the hat had been purple, it would have been fine. You sound like my mother. ,
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2010 9:14:55 GMT
We almost (temporarily) moved to Saudi Arabia when I was about 10 years old, when they were doing their first recruiting drives for Aramco and such with huge salaries for ordinary work.
I don't know who chickened out -- father or mother or both -- but I was disappointed as hell when the idea was shelved. I bet my brother was relieved, though. Not an adventurer...
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 9, 2010 17:07:52 GMT
Urg. Reading that disappointment brought back one that's still with me. When I was 14 my dad was transferred to Japan. I remember we all got our shots to go, so that must have been the plan. I have no idea what went on between my parents that caused us not to go, but Mama & the kids moved to St. Francisville for the duration, & only Daddy went to Japan.
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