OT - Sen-Sen

It total agreement with you JT but I fear those sticks are gone forever, at least in this country. Last time I had anything even close was about 20 years ago at Disneyland. The FDA ( I believe ) made some stink about one of the additives in old fashioned licorice and it went bye-bye. As a very poor substitute I but the big jug of American Licorice sticks, remove the top and let it sit for a few weeks.

Do you remember the NIBS licorice candy? :)

Vic

I heard once (likely an urban legend) that it was taken off the market because it was the only way to mess up the reading of a breathalizer.

A little sliver of that stuff sure was powerful.

I had completely forgotten about Sen-Sen.

As kids, we used to chew on twigs which were imported from some far- away land. It was called Zoethout. (sweet wood) A licorice-y kinda taste. After the initial tastyness, you would be left with a ropey stringy mush which had no flavour left and looked like a paint-brush...then snip it off and start over..till it was all gone.

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DAGS... stuff is called Zoethout - Glycyrrhiza glabra. ( With a name like that, I'm not sure I'd put that in my mouth again.

Other names: Dutch: Allerlustwortel, Kalissehout, Kalissiehout, Kalissestok, Kalliche, Klishout, Krissie, Begijnehout, Kenthout, Bitterzoet, Lakrits, Prikswiethout, Sep, Swietprikke, Zuutholt, Pockhout, Zoethout(wortel)>

English: Liquorice, Sweet Liquorice, Licorice, Licorice root, Sweetwood, Calamus, Mulethi, Sweet Wort, Drop, Black Sugar, Spanish Juice

German: S=FCssholz, Lallholz, Lakritzen, Lakriz, Lakritzenholz.

French: R=E9glisse, Lacrisse,Bois doux, Racine douce, Herbe aux tanneurs.

Legend has it that it toughens up the ol' johnson.

Is that a local treat? Never heard of Sen-Sen.

Grew up in the 60's in a small town in Penna. - victorian houses, = tree-lined strrets with sidewalks, etc. There was a little store in = town that sold penny candy. I remember filling our little red wagon = with macs from the apple tree in our yard, then my sister, me, and our = dog would go door to door selling apples to our neighbors for a penny = each. When we had a fistfull of pennies, we'd run to the store and buy = an assortment of penny candy. My favorites were horehound drops, and = little flying saucers filled with candy beads - don't remeber what those = were called, haven't seen 'em in years. Can still get horehound drops = though.

--=20 Timothy Juvenal

When I was a child one of my favorite walks was that which took us to the penny candy store.

I could pretty much tell that we were going there by whether we took a left or a right on Marshall Street.

On those evenings that we took a left it was a treat for a sweet-toothed youngun.

This was an old timey candy emporium with apothecary jars full of everything that would make a small person smack their lips.

I particularly liked those watermelon slices that were made of nothing more than colored sugar and cocoanut.

Another favorite was lemon drops.

The most interesting thing in the store was also an educational item.

They had a rock candy vat and they told you how to make it yourself.

Nothing more than a heavy solution of sugar water with a string stuck into the mix for the crystals to form on - and with a little food coloring - it looked and tasted like much more than what it was.

Peppermint sticks that tasted like nothing I have ever had since.

Everything was a penny, or a few for a penny - but they was 1957 prices.

I'd like to take that walk again, with some smallish children - but those stores are pretty much gone from here - sad.

Weren't they "Y&S" or something like that? I remember them as well. About 4" long and a good 3/8" or better thick

Those you can still find, I think. Both black and cherry or strawberry

Nibs appear to still be around, Y&S not:

Black Jack chewing gum. Those little wax bottles filled with colored sugar water.

strrets with sidewalks, etc. There was a little store in town that sold penny candy. I remember filling our little red wagon with macs from the apple tree in our yard, then my sister, me, and our dog would go door to door selling apples to our neighbors for a penny each. When we had a fistfull of pennies, we'd run to the store and buy an assortment of penny candy. My favorites were horehound drops, and little flying saucers filled with candy beads - don't remeber what those were called, haven't seen 'em in years. Can still get horehound drops though.

Similar memories. Grew up in Flat Rock, MI. We / I would walk up to Wagar's market with a wagon and collect pop bottles along the way. Old Man Wagar would give us a penny for the small ones, 2 cents for the big ones. Pretzel sticks were 3 for a nickle ... a ball of kite twine was a dime -- a quarter for the big spool. If I had a good day for bottles, I'd walk out with enough extra to buy some snapper fireworks next door. Sometimes I even had a few cents jingling on the way home.

That's what being wealthy is like ... a belly full, an armful and some jingle left over.

(This was in the days before there was a deposit on the bottles ... old man Wagar just wanted them picked up and was willing to pay us young ones for our effort.)

Bill

Odd ... thick glass bottles were returned and reused when I was a pup in Dearborn. Are you talking about the thin throwaways that prompted the deposit laws?

Guess I'm just old.

Amazing what memories that being 10 years old before you ever saw a TV will conjure.

When's the last time, on a long summer's evening, when you could stay out until 9, did you catch a firefly and put it in a jar?

... or have even seen a firefly?

The seers say the world will end on 12/21/11 ... it started in 1957.

Now that one I do regularly with my grandsons every summer. My mom even found an old time firefly cage at a church auction and bought it for them. Get a few dozen in the cage (they catch most of them of course) and you can pretty much call it a night for firefly hunting - 'til the next night of course.

Dave Hall

Haven't seen one since I moved from Pennsylvania to California in 1955 but it does bring back memories of sitting in the back yard with my uncle and dad and catching them.

We also had an Ice Cream Shop just down the street. We could buy an ice cream bar for 10 cents and the best part was getting a stick that had the word FREE printed on it!! Could get another right away. Also had small boxes of popcorn that occasionally had a FREE slip inside.

Family got our first TV in 1947 when I was 10 years old ( yes, I AM an old fart ). I remember that I was initially so disappointed that I couldn't SEE my favorite radio shows. Didn't realize it was separate programming.

Boy, what a trip down memory lane - see what you started with your damn Sen Sen JOAT??

:)

Vic

Ah yes, so much more popping back ito memory now. And, if you ain't never heard of sen-sen, you're young..

I was born in 1940, so I was there for more than most of you, and can still remember a lot of it. I rember the litle round ration things from the war; and my old man alkng up the drive in his uiform with his duffle bag on his shoulder, after he walked about a mile from the tracks

- no station there, the train crews did things like that for the military guys back then.

I rember 2 cants for soda bottle, and 5 cents for the big ones. Loved blackjack gum, but haven't seen that in years, I'd probably still get some once in awhile. Spruce beer, birch beer, and ginger beer - I know they probably still make th em just haven't seen any in years. And ginger beer is NOT ginger ale. I don't quite recall what .22s cost, but know I usually bought shorts because they were a bit less, longs if I had some extra, and long rifles if I eally felt wealthy.. Paper covered licorice "cigarettes". I remember the candy cigarettes too, but licorice has always been my favorite candy. I remember my great-gaandmother making corncob syrup - clean dry corncobs boiled with sugar, no ide where the recipe came from but the syrup on pancakes was great.

I rember collecting coke bottle that came from different parts of the world too. Arabis lettering at times, others that looked like a regular coke bottle, until you looked at the bottom and it would say what country it came from.

Baby Ruth candy bars for a nickle, and the really big ones for a quarter. A nickle could usually be spared, but not so often a quarter. And Turkish taffy, that was so sweet it would almost make you sick - I don't know if that's still around or not, and don't really care. Chocolate malted milk shakes for a quarter, and once you'd drank it down a few inches, the guy would pur the rest of it in your glass. Soda fountains in the drug store, where you could get a glass of root beer for a nickle.

We never saw any fireflys in MI, but down here I have them in my front yard in the summer.

I remember RC Cola, but haven't seen that for a long time. And, moon pies, also not seen. I never could see the reason for combining the two, but would still have a moon pie and an RC Cola every once in awhile. I used to put a pack of peanuts in my bottle of Pepsi too. Plastic bottle just aren't quite the same as a glass bottle you would set aside and later turn in at your local grocery store to get the two cent deposit back.

Some things it's good to remeber, and some things technology should h ave left alone.

And how many of you remember going thru a cow pasture - barefoot? Been there, done that. Some things are good to remember, but not enough so to repeat. LOL

JOAT When in doubt, go to sleep.

- Mully Small

Damn, almost forot some of the best stuff.

Lunch break, mid winter, and walking about 14 mile to the store, buying licorice whips, about 2 feet long, the cold freezing them on the way back, and breaking off pieces to eat.

Getting dropped off at the movie theater, for the Saturday matinee, for an hour of really good cartoons, the next episode of the serial, and uaualy a western that was probably a pretty bad movie, with enough money for the ticket, a drink, and a little candy. Life was good.

That movie theater has gone thru any number of changes, and I think now that it's been restored and is a movie theater again.

I remember the really big tootsie rolls too. There were separated into segments. Now all I see are the bags of the small pieces. Damn it, I'd like to have one of those big ones, where I could bite off a piece, wrap it up and save the rest for later. Some people always want to mess with success.

I remember mking rock candy at home too, with the string in sugar water. And pulling taffy once or twice - OK, but not worth the effort as far as I'm ncerned. I remember popcorn balls too, even getting them on halloween. And crackerjack for a nickle a box, with a neat price inside - it's still around, just more pricey, only now seems like the "prizes" are just something printed on paper.

JOAT When in doubt, go to sleep.

- Mully Small

One of my little nephews spent a lot of time fishing with my father. One evening he and my Dad were out in the backyard catching "lightning bugs." They came in and Mom asked David if they had caught many. Remembering a line from fishing with Dad, he responded, "Not too many, but the ones we did get were good size."

Dick "nostalgic" Durbin

My neighbourhood candy store was also the source for my first cigarettes. They had singles of a really cheap brand and they were awful. But, they were good enough to get a nice little addiction out of them. Same little store: candy cigarettes genever condoms

everything for a boy's rites of passage.

I also remember putting a quarter in a cigarette machine for a pack of Lucky Strike ( remember those?) and getting a pack with two pennies inside the wrapper AND a pack of matches.

JT - licorice has always been my favorite also - remember the licorice "pipes" and "cigars" they uses to have? Loved those.

And I won't go into the embarrassment of going into a drugstore to buy condoms and getting a lady clerk who knew my family - talk about rites of passage.

I remember Debbie O'Neal, cutest girl in the high school (everybody thought Pegi Carter was but that was just because Pegi was blonde with big 'uns), jerking sodas at Steger's drug store after school. If she liked you you'd get an extra shot of syrup. When I was a pre-schooler you could still get a Coke out of a machine for a nickel, but by the time I was out of high school a 16 ounce was a quarter if I remember correctly.

I never see a lot of them in the summer in CT but there are usually a half dozen or so flashing away.

RC yet lives . Moonpies as well

As for the glass bottle, google "rc cola proposition 65". Lock up your weapons first or you may find yourself locking, loading, and looking for the nearest lawyer.

My favorite beverage when I was a kid was Grapette, had its own uniquely shaped bottle. Now that I haven't seen in decades. Googling I find that it disappeared from the US market and was finally revived by Wal-Mart of all people.

... snip

Cracker Barrel restaurants carry a number of those products. I know I've seen Blackjack gum there. They also have Stewart's Orange soda -- yum!