Sweets and Treats

When I was a child sweets were something special. Unlike today, kids simply did not have access to a lot of candy. Perhaps some of the reason was economic, I think, however, it was more a complete difference in lifestyle. Fast food simply didn't exist. There were no McDonalds or Burger Kings on every streetcorner...people actually made food at home and sat down as a family to eat three times a day. Most people did not keep soda pop at home, opting instead for Kool Aide in a pitcher with ice for a sweet drink.

I used to look forward to Sundays for my sweets. Sunday morning Mom would put a roast in the oven and we would drive to St. George's church in Long Lake for Mass...always leaving the doors unlocked. When we got home, we would change out of our "Sunday clothes", I'd go out to play for a while, and Mom would finish preparing our large Sunday meal. After dinner, as it was called, Mom would make fudge. Although I'm not certain, the recipe, I think, consisted of Hershey's cocoa powder, lots of butter , and cups of sugar. She'd heat it on the old stove, knowing somehow when the temperature was just right. If it was either too hot or too cool, the fudge would either crystallize or never get solid enough to pick up.

The difficult part was waiting for the stuff to cool. Then, when it had, Mom would cut squares, put them on a plate, and we'd sit in the living room, listening to the radio and eating fudge. That was the extent of my chocolate exposure most of the time.

Two other opportunities for sweets existed: When Mom would bake a pie...cherry was and is my favorite, or a cake...invariably yellow cake with chocolate frosting...both from scratch using, I believe, Bisquick for the pie dough and Softasilk cake flour for the cake. One day when my parents were both away, suffering from a lack of sugar, I decided to make a cake. Unfortunately, we had no eggs. I proceeded following the recipe on the back of the Softasilk box...less the eggs...and put it in the oven to bake. It turned out quite flat.

The other great opportunity for sugar consumption was at Steve's house. Mrs. Kaster canned everything from her large garden. She also made the very best strawberry jam in the entire world. Each morning, it seemed, she would make bread...lots of bread...she had a lot of big, strong boys to feed. She had an old wood-burning stove with the oven on the side. We could smell the fresh bread from outside when she took it out of the oven to cool...and we always made a beeline in to the kitchen to beg the first piece.

We'd get a thick slice of that wonderful, still warm, thick crusted bread, load on the home made strawberry jam...so much so that it literally ran down the sides and down our hands, and go sit on the back steps to enjoy our wonderful treat. We'd get a glass of milk...unpasteurized from their own cows...and be in absolute heaven.

As I've said, economic times were such that kids did not really have any money...of course...we really didn't need it. But occasionally, in the summer when we weren't fishing, Steve and I would have a craving for "real" candy...and "real" pop. The only way we could buy it was with our own money. That meant collecting bottles.

I really don't know if we still have a bottle return fee in Minnesota any more, but at that time we did. It was 2 or 3 cents per bottle. That may not sound like a lot but consider that a candy bar cost a nickel and a bottle of pop was 7 cents...later it went to a dime. If we could collect enough bottles, we could redeem them at Emma's Cafe in Long Lake and get a candy bar and bottle of pop in the deal.

We'd hop on our bikes and ride slowly along the road, Willow Drive now, a gravel road with weed-filled ditches on the sides, scanning the brush for the telltale glint of glass. Finding something promising, we'd park our bikes...right in the middle of the road...hop off, and explore the ditch for a bottle or two. The entire trip to Long Lake must have taken an hour or more. We both had baskets mounted on the front of our bikes to carry the bottles in.

Arriving at Emma's, we'd carry the bottles into the cafe and put them on the counter. The older lady, I don't know if it was the "Emma" or not, was very kind to us, counting the bottles and sliding the pennies, nickels and the occasional dime across the counter as the rest of the customers watched bemusedly. Normally, we'd have enough to buy a candy bar and bottle of pop for each of us. I usually chose a 3 Musketeers...they were then by far the biggest candy bar available...the top indented so that the bar could be broken into 3 pieces...each as big as today's entire bar. For pop, I chose Sarsaparilla...actually Root Beer...but I'd heard one of the radio cowboys, Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, order it when he went into a saloon.

We'd usually sit outside on the sidewalk to enjoy our treats, basking in the warm sunshine and watching the infrequent traffic go by. We didn't wander away yet because we hadn't been charged the bottle deposit so we had to return the bottles before we left. There was a feed store across the street at that time and we'd ride over there just to look around and visit with the farmers who came to town to buy feed for their animals.

As long as we'd ridden all this way, we'd make our trip to Long Lake worthwhile by going down the street to the Buckhorn and standing on the fence that surrounded the real buffaloes in the back down by the lake. Then, a walk through Kip Hale's Buckhorn...looking at the seeming millions of neat things he had adorning the knotty pine walls. The guns of every possible configuration were favorites...and the stuffed animals...the strange ones and the exotic ones. Not one person ever asked us to leave as we walked through the bar, up and down the aisles of diners, or through the bowling alley.

If we thought we had time after the Buckhorn, we'd sometimes ride down to the pool hall...I think it was "Jakes" but I'm no longer sure of that. An old building, clapboard siding with high tin ceilings, it was a favorite for the "old timers" of the area to hang out at. There was a bar, some high-backed booths where men played cribbage, and pool tables. It was dark and a kind of old dusty feeling filled the place. We'd talk to everyone.

We'd usually come back home on Brown Road as it was much more direct and the only paved road in the area. Once past St. George's, it was also pretty much downhill all the way to Steve's house. The end of a fun day.