Rolo Out the Barrel

A few weeks ago, Sean and I stopped at the Val-Mart in Leduc for some groceries. I noticed the store had Rolo candies, which I haven't had since the 1980s. On a lark, I picked up a roll specifically so that I could place two Rolos bottom-to-bottom, as pictured above, to form a barrel shape. I used to do this as a kid, for reasons long forgotten. I guess I thought it somehow looked neat? 

I was, and am, easily amused. 
 

Sign of the Times

Welcome, reader. I see you've found a pair of the special glasses that open your eyes to the truth of the world. We are being programmed by forces malicious and cruel, and recognizing that truth is our first step to liberation. 

You may have surmised that I opened the candy after all. I realized that the wrapper would fit perfectly into this 28mm sign. This'll be a nice little pop culture touch in my modern 28mm-scale city. 

Consume Obey Reproduce

These sinister candies came in the mail today. Given the wrappers, it seems I must eat them . . . and yet I fear the consequences . . . 
 

Gateway to Carbbb

My God, It's Full of Hands

What do you call a footlocker that's been filled with hands? A handlocker? A handy storage solution? The digital error? 

Hard Candy

Hard candy was never my favourite treat, but the colours are certainly festive. Hard candy feels like the echo of ancient relatives - great aunts and great uncles, grandparents in farmhouses, quarters handed out by wrinkled hands on green lawns with golden fields of wheat and sunflowers in the distance. 

Green Confectionery

My colleague Diane brought me a present on her return from a vacation to East Asia: this Green Tea Kit Kat bar. I brought it home to share with Sylvia, but we haven't been bold enough to try it yet. The package is certainly interesting. What script is that, I wonder? 

The First Halloween

The earliest Halloween I remember is one that took place in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba. I was perhaps 5 or 6 years old, and I wore a simple ghost costume, created, of course, by Mom cutting a couple of holes in a bedsheet. Snow usually comes early to Leaf Rapids, and the snow that Halloween night was incredibly thick, the winds blustery, the temperatures bone-chilling. I carried a small plastic pumpkin that was quickly filled with the candy of compassionate neighbours. We didn't have to stay out long to get a good haul, thank goodness.

I can't remember if Mom escorted me and Dad stayed home to hand out candy, or vise versa. Whoever went with me got the raw end of that deal, as we came home shivering and soaked to the skin with precipitation.

My favourite treat back then were Kraft Softee Toffees, which seem not to exist anymore. Indeed, it seems few remember the chewy delicacies, if my fruitless Internet searches are anything to go by.

I remember three or four distinct flavours: chocolate (brown wrapper), coffee (green wrapper), rum and butter (pink wrapper?) and perhaps a simple "toffee" flavour, wrapper colour unknown. These things were even better than Kraft caramels, which now, sadly, only come in vanilla.

Does anyone remember Softee Toffees, or, for that matter, chocolate Kraft caramels? 

The Devil's Candy

It tastes like something straight from Hell
And has that awful licorice smell
This candy reeks with foul intent
It aches to leave your senses bent

Never gobble this awful stuff
Or you will need your tastebuds buffed

Suite of Tarts

Odious Candies

Shipwrecked on Candy Isle
Gilligan ate everything but
Goodies and Big Turk

Chilling in Tubes

Here's the next in a series of oddly-posed campground photos. This one's a little more normal than the others, but note the can of Garbage Can-dy on the picnic table. I'm actually starting to wonder if these photos were taken in Leaf Rapids, though - it's possible that this is Alberta, shortly after our move to Black Gold Country.

Marketing Boo-st

Garbage Can-dy

Today Sylvia and I stopped at the Bulk Barn for provisions. I stopped in my tracks when I spotted ghosts from the past: neon-coloured cans of Garbage Can-dy, a sugary confection I first encountered as a child on a trip to Nipawin, Saskatchewan.

For nostalgia's sake I bought a can, and to my delight I discovered the contents haven't changed. Here are the discarded sneakers, pop bottles, soup cans and fish bones of my childhood, though I seem to remember there used to be bones as well. Of course these days the bottles and soup cans go in the recycle bin. Can fish bones be composted? Hmmm.

I'm munching on one of the fish bones now, but my memory isn't good enough to tell me if the flavours have changed. It's sweet, hard and chalky, in any case.

I'm almost certain I still have at least one or two Garbage Cans from the 1970s, because I used them to store the laser guns and other accessories of my Star Wars action figures. You can hold a lot of little plastic pistols in these bins, and they snap closed very firmly so there's little risk of losing your stash.

And now, having eaten all the Can-dy, I have another empty Garbage Can. Perhaps Sylvia can use it to store her earrings.