When I was a kid, probably 8, maybe 9, my dad would pay me and my neighborhood gang a penny for every dandy lion we could dig up out of the lawn. He would give us each a small garden spade and an empty 10-ounce Maxwell House coffee can to collect our harvest and then present for “the counting”. So of course, we would eagerly charge out into the dandy lion fields with eyes peeled for the bright yellow flowers that would soon bring us our fortunes.
Those were the days before there was sprayable poison thatwould kill everything except the grass leaving lawns a lush green carpet like the golf courses we would see on TV.
Me and the dandy lion team would make it maybe 30 minutes before getting bored and wanting to cash out.
Dad was great at the counting table. He would carefully empty out each of our cans while we all looked on with anticipation, counting them one by one, sliding each of the dandy deceased from the pile on the left to the right. Then once the total was reached and we all endorsed his count, he would reach into his bag of change and pay us for our labor.
The kid that had dug up the most was celebrated for a “Dandy Victory” and then we would sit in the shade and talk about what we were going to do with this windfall of cash. The conversations while always spirited, usually proposed things way out of our price range. You just can’t buy a new bike for thirteen cents, not even back then.
Fortunately for me, then, and now, I tend to live below my means. So, I would take my earnings and toss them in an El Producto cigar box that I had acquired somewhere, maybe it was my grandpa’s? I remember the box had an illustration of a beautiful dark-haired woman in a flowing red dress playing some kind of small harp on a Romanesque patio that overlooked the sea. Every time I opened the lidI smelled the lingering scent of tobacco.
It was then that my big sister would usually appear and ask how I did, and I would excitedly show her my vault of saved up wages.
We would dump the box of coins out on my bed and separate them in piles, pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. But the important bit here is that we arranged them by size, and while the penny is slightly larger than the dime, the dime is silver and therefore cooler than the penny, sadly leaving Abe last in the order.
She explained to me that the nickel was worth more than the dime because it was bigger. In addition, it features our nation’s third president, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, signer of the Declaration of Independence and rocker of a groovy ponytail. We agreed, Thom is easily a much cooler president than the stuffy aristocratic Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appears on the dime.
But the best part she told me with a sly grin and sideways glance, was that this one nickel could get me one Hershey bar at Zane’s Market.
One for one. Easy peasy. One nickel is all it took for just a little over one ounce of pure childhood chocolatey bliss.
Hershey’s milk chocolate bars were the gold standard for me and were famously priced at a nickel per bar from their introduction in 1900 until 1969, thus ruining dinners and keeping dentists busy for a couple generations. The 5-cent price point lasted for 69years and was doubled to ten cents on November 24, 1969. I remember that dark day when Zane’s changed the price on the candy rack like the day Elvis died.
But today, as luck would have it, my Big Sister was willing to help me with my Hershey Bar habit by generously trading me her nickels for my dimes, one dime for one nickel. That’s sibling love. Holy smokes! I excitedly agreed, quickly made the trade, pocketed 4 of those shiny nickels in case I encountered 3 hungry friends out in the wild, jumped on my bike and cruised up to the market.
I peddled up Second Street past Betcher Avenue and turned left on Johnson, then straight on for two blocks, skidding to a stop just before Front Street. Zane’s Market had a proper roof that extended over the sidewalk to the curb, providing deep shade against the summer sun. There was a Pepsi Cola pop machine to the left of the entrance, the logo panel at the top glowed like a beacon in the cool darkness. The machine was about the same size as they are today, but the pop was sold in heavy, cold glass bottles for ten cents apiece.
Machines usually had 7 to 10 round tubes with the bottles lying on their sides, caps facing front, stacked in a row vertically on the left-hand side of the machine. You could see the flavors on the caps through a tall narrow glass windowed door and when it got hot outside the glass would be covered with condensation making it look even colder.
There was Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Dr.Pepper, Frostie Root Beer, Mountain Dew, Patio Orange and 7-Up. Regular Pepsi and Mountain Dew usually had two rows because they were popular, but sometimes there would be Fresca or Faygo “Red Pop” that was strawberry flavored and made your tongue red. You would put in your dime, open the tall, windowed door, reach in and take hold of the top of the bottle and pull it out with a gratifying “ka-chunk” sound. There was a bottle opener on the right that caught all the caps. After enjoying your soda in the wonderful shade there were wooden crates on the ground beside the machine for you to place the empty bottles for cleaning and re-use. Looking back this was a wonderful and easy system that I wish was the same today.
Zane’s Market was small, kind of like convenience stores today but they had a full meat department where Zane and his brother cut meat to order. The brothers used an ancient butcher block that from the side looked like a sway backed horse, but they knew their business and everyone’s name. It’s a Dover thing; they doted on the housewives, shook the hands of the husbands and patted the heads or the youngsters. They paid great attention to detail by wrapping each order in white paper, writing the last name of the buyer along with the price in black wax pencil, then securing the fresh cuts by tying each securely with heavy white string from a big spool that looked like my mom’s sewing thread only 10 times bigger. But I rarely made it all the way around to the meat counter.
The front entrance door was old and heavy and had a thumb latch that for the life of me I could not push down far enough to open. Fortunately, it was almost always ajar, so you just had to push on it, and upon stepping inside the check-out register was to the left and the candy rack was directly in front of you.
Nirvana.
The joy brought on by the colorful glow of the candy rack was dimmed by the death stare from the lady behind the cash register. Dark hair, cat rimmed eyeglasses, conservative house dress and a “do not mess with me little fellah” look.
I made sure to keep my focus on the candy rack and not make eye contact. There were many options, Clark Bars, Baby Ruth, Nestle’s Crunch and Three Musketeers bars, Dots, Mallo Cups, Butterfinger, Milk Shake, M &M’s, and the weirdest I recall was the “Idaho Spud” that looked like a potato but was in fact chocolate. Weird. I was also not a fan of Fireballs, Big Hunk, Almond Joy, or Twizzlers, and my most disliked was Necco Wafers. To me, Necco Wafers should be ground into powder and used to thicken up spackling compound, or maybe added to concrete, or just flushed down the toilet.
Quickly I would locate the box of Hershey bars, still my “go to” candy to this day. The brown wrapper with the big bold grey type and the silver inner wrapper that made it like opening a wonderful joyous present. Each bar was divided into a grid, 3 rectangles across, 4 rows deep, each piece stamped with the iconic “Hershey’s” name. A total of 12 pieces of wonderfulness.
I would go directly to the rack and grab a bar from the top of the box and place it on the counter to pay. Again, making no eye contact. If there was a line, I would look behind the counter and the stacks of pads that they wrote orders on, the kind that make a carbon copy that’s yellow and you can’t read them very well. Each pad had a family name at the top written in black and my mom told me that every month Zane would mail the yellow copies and a total to the families for payment.
The check out lady would regard me much as she might regard a peasant buying a piece of day-old bread, take my nickel and drop it in the wooden cash register drawer with a soft clink, then give me a dismissive look that I took to mean “now get outta here kid.”
I’m sure she was nice on her days off. At least I hope so.
I grab my Hershey Bar, and head out the door to recline in the shade and eat it like some kind of big shot TV star.
But what’s the process going to be today, one piece at atime, one row at a time? I would never bite into it willy nilly. Sometimes,whether piece or row, I wouldn’t chew it, I’d just tuck it in my cheek, close my eyes, and let it melt.
It was always peaceful, sitting on the low wall outside, leaning my back against the store, in the cool shade, Hershey’s in hand, listening to the cars on Front Street. It was a busy street, and I could feel the ground tremble when the big diesel coal trucks with their growling deep throated engines downshifted to slow and turn onto old Route 8. And across the street the constant and the friendly “ding-ding” sound as folks drove over the compressed air hose sending the signal to the service bell at Mr. Hershberger’s Sinclare Gas Station. I loved that big green dinosaur on the sign, still do.
My Zen chocolate moment was cut short when one of the Robins that had nested in the rafters took off to go find food for their babies, bringing me out of my cocoa induced reverie.
I balled up the wrapper, did my best Wilt Chamberlain sky hookshot to the trash can and nailed it, nothing but net.
The summertime for me was freedom from judgement, time away from teachers that spent their time accessing your performance, and constantly telling you where you have to be and what have to do.
So, it was with that freedom and the energy that it provided, helped along with the Hershey Bar sugar bump I'm sure, that I swung my leg over the banana bike seat and headed to the city pool for a swim. Chlorine was my friend, and the sparkling blue water my jam.
I planned my route to go over past Mark’s house to see if he wanted to come, and Jimmy’s, and Matt’s. It was pretty easy, as I coasted past, I just stood on my tip toes on the pedals and looked at their yards to see if they were outside. If not, I would stop and knock, see if they were up for a swim, and hope that their moms would ask me in for a late breakfast or early lunch. I was whip thin and Mom’s always wanted to feed me, and not wanting to disappoint them I always obliged.
Riding my bike was freedom, much like it is now driving my car. The whir of the sprocket on my banana bike replaced with the growl of the headers on my hot rod. Adventure, the unknown, all the possibilities that bring laughter, connection, stories and memories.
Summertime in my small town is something that I will cherish all my life.
And every year for 60 years now my big sister gives me a Hershey Bar on my birthday. I think that makes her much cooler than Thom or Franklin.
