Stopped at the Candy Aisle

I went to the store this morning, meaning to make a quick dash in for only a couple of items. As I rolled my cart by the candy aisle, I, of course, paused and remembered that my candy dish was empty. As I surveyed all the tempting items, a little, white-haired lady stopped and eyed all those sweets. “Isn’t this stuff awfully high?” I commented.

She smiled. “Goodness, yes. I remember getting a big candy bar for ten cents.” 

“And, we could break it into two pieces and share it,” I said.

She turned toward me, her grocery cart forgotten. “When I was a child, my friends and I would walk to the grocery store and get crackers and bologna and that would be our lunch.” 

I sensed a story that I wanted to hear. As she talked, I wished for a notepad and pencil, but, having neither, I listened closely.

“We would walk down the street to the store and we’d have to go right past a beer joint,” she told me. 

I forgot about the items I had meant to buy and leaned toward her.

She nodded. “Of course, we children couldn’t go inside, but about noon, the owner would come to the door and say, ‘Okay, kids, the drunks have cleared out. You can come on in now.’ We’d go inside and sit on his bar stools–they had red covers–and he’d serve us all a Coke. He had a parrot too.”

“Those were the good old days,” I said.

“Yes, and they don’t seem like that long ago. My husband-to-be was one of the kids I ran around with. He was a sight, always teasing me. One day, when we were all grown up, he came to my house and said, ‘Lillian’ (This wasn’t her name and I blush to say I’ve forgotten her name) ‘this is the day you’re going to marry me.'”

I laughed. “So, did you marry him?”

“Yes, I did,” she said. “We were together fifty-nine years.”

She wiped away a tear that had formed beneath her eye. “He was a pastor.”

I knew that time was getting away from me, but there was no way I could have interrupted her. That would have been rude and I would have missed a good story. I decided I didn’t need the items I had come for. I picked up a bag of expensive candy. “Thank you so much for telling me,” I said. “You should write all this down.”

She shook her head. “Oh, I’m not much of a writer.”

Well, I’m a writer and I couldn’t wait to get home and write this wonderful first-hand account of a quieter, fun, and well-remembered time. It would be perfect for working into a future book.  That pause at the candy aisle was one I’d remember. Who knows? Maybe hearing this remembrance was the reason  our paths crossed. As I left the store, the day was still wet and cold, but it seemed to me that it was much brighter.