Penny treasures
Time to retire to a happy place. I cannot invite my children because they will not know what I am talking about but my siblings may remember. The awesome world of penny candy. Found in every small corner store. A variety that defies description. And with it the way we paid for our rations. We collected empty pop bottles. Another part of the economy that my children may not realize was important. If you roamed the ditch, which we did you might come across an abandoned bottle that could then be traded at the local corner store for a small brown paper bag filled with goodness. Of the sugary kind. I know there are still stores that sell penny candy perhaps one or two per country. A place where you can go to buy things that as I said defy description. How to tell someone else about the red hot or the licorice pipe or the coloured peppermints. Pale pink and pale green. All the same taste. We would learn which store gave the best return on our investment. At the top of the list would be a store that would give you a whole small bag in return for two bottles. I think it had to do with the way that people would go out with their friends buy a couple of pops and then throw the bottle away not realizing how important that was going to be to someone younger than them. It actually would be best served by a full length movie. We could roam those same ditches with a guest star and come back to reap our treasure. We did not put penny candy in our pockets for fear of losing any one piece through a hole in the bottom or by having something melt down and coat the inside of that pocket which would then bring on the wrath of the parent. How to explain why you had goo in your pockets. Probably impossible. For the record the standard 12 ounce pop bottle came with a return value of two cents. How many children even know what a penny is anymore.
