The Candy Store

Things were cheap in the early 70s but money was hard to come by for a kid 10-12 years old. If there was something we really wanted we would have to wait for Christmas or our birthday. But to have spending money for the important everyday needs such as candy and soda a kid had to use his wits. We would shovel snow in the winter for a couple of bucks a driveway or wear ourselves out pushing lawnmowers all over the neighborhood in order to cut someone's grass for about 2-5 dollars a yard. We even made money roaming thru fields and creeks retrieving balls that golfers hit but had to quit because of poison ivy and the owner of the golf course said he was going to call the cops. I guess our main source of income was returning empty soda bottles for the 3 cent deposit. We would get these most anywhere, trash cans, people's front porches, even climb into creeks and bring them in filled with mud and bugs crawling all over. Our favorite cash in place was " The Candy Store. " Every neighborhood had one, they were usually small and kind of dark inside which played to our advantage. Ours was owned by an old bald guy who we called Freckle Head because he had big freckles on top of his noggin. He would always tell us to wash the bottles next time we brought them in but we never did. His wife worked there too, she was younger and nicer than he was. We would spend every penny of our bottle money on candy and she would say " You boys are going to get sticky fingers from all that candy " and Freckle Head would say " Their fingers were sticky when they came in here. " We couldn't wait to get outside so we could find out what each other swiped. " What'd you get? " " I got some bubs daddy and a zero bar, what'd you get? " I got some cherry now and laters and some blackjack gum. " Freckle Head would be looking out the window thinking " What'd they get? " He made up for our thievery by charging tax on 25 cent items. My brother and I hung around some brothers that lived at the end of our street and when we teamed up we were like the James-Younger gang. We always found a way to get candy.