Carolyn
J. Rose
My
mother was a nurse and read many books on nutrition. When we were kids, she
planned meals that contained all elements from the food pyramid, with an
emphasis on vegetables.
Potato
chips, cola, and white bread didn’t make many appearances at our house.
Neither
did candy.
Sure,
it turned up around Halloween, at Christmas, and in the bunny baskets at
Easter. But desserts or sweet snacks—and those snacks were pretty darn small
because of that pesky food pyramid—consisted of fruit in a pie, or fruit in
gelatin, or just plain fruit.
My
grandmothers, however, often had cookies or cake, and they had candy every day
of the year. They had it right out in the open, in their living rooms, where
anyone who came to visit could see it. One kept butterscotch bits and caramels in
a crystal dish with a heavy lid. The other stored mixed candies in an inlaid
box someone had brought her from Brazil. The top featured butterfly
wings pressed beneath glass.
That
lid often seemed more enticing and interesting than the contents of the box.
The candy wasn’t what I considered to be prime. Oh, there were mints, and
sometimes spicy gumdrops, and almost always chunks of black licorice. But digging
through the box in search of chocolate was usually an exercise in futility.
It
was also an exercise in learning about manners, hygiene, and how germs spread.
“Are your hands clean?” I’d be asked. “If you touch a piece, take it, and eat
it,” I’d be told.
It
was also a lesson in playing well with others. My brothers and cousins all knew
about the box and all hit it on a regular basis—sometimes as a group. “Don’t be
a pig,” we’d shout at the person who got there first. “No fair taking the best
ones,” we’d whine.
I
imagine there are many people who still have candy boxes or covered dishes in
their living rooms. I’m not one of them. First, Max the entitled Maltese would
no doubt sniff it out and find a way to get to it and thus require me to make a
frantic race to the emergency clinic to have his stomach emptied. Second, I
don’t trust myself to pass a dish of candy without relieving it of some of its
contents. Passing a dish two dozen times a day would expand my waistline. And
it doesn’t need expanding.
This
is not to say that candy isn’t welcome in our home. We buy dark chocolate bars,
stash them out of sight, and take segments now and then. On low-stress days, I
may not eat any. On days of higher stress—particularly those when I’m subbing
for challenging classes—a single segment isn’t enough.
On
those days I think of my mother. She loved chocolates and, after we were all
grown and gone, often indulged. When she found a good deal, would buy a pound
or two. She’d eat a few and then ask my father to hide the rest for a few days and
save her from herself. He’d do his best, but she was as experienced at hunting
as he was at hiding, and she often said, “He didn’t do a good job. It took me
only an hour to find them.”
Their
house has been sold twice since they died, but sometimes I wonder if there
isn’t a bag of chocolates hidden behind a baseboard or stashed high on a
rafter. I like to imagine my mother is still searching for it, and my father is
smiling and shaking his head when she asks if she’s hot or cold.
