Hunker Down With Kes: Raised On Milk Duds and Goo Goo’s

People ask me how did we have the energy to do all the things I write about in those black and white bygone years of the 1950’s. The answer here is simple. We grew up on Hostess SnoBalls. Listen, you could eat a two-pack of that treat, and you wouldn’t blink your eyes for the next ten hours!

You could fight one of William McCaleb’s billy goats. You could do a standing broad jump over the gate into Mr. Archie Moore’s south pasture. You could run to town and back without stopping. You could throw a crabapple from our back steps into the pond down behind the swimming pool.

I could take two bites of one pink Hostess SnoBall and attack Leon from his blind side. My brother was a foot and a half taller, forty pounds heavier, and five years older. But the sugar high and the sneak attack let me “hold my own” with him for about 17 seconds.

He’d recover and whip me something awful. But I felt like the “king of the hill” there for a brief moment.

I was six or seven, but plenty old enough to know a SnoBall was 99 per cent straight sugar, with just a dash of toasted coconut sprinkled on top to give us some nutrition. Of course, I’m kidding here about the nutrition.

That was the last thing on earth we were thinking about when trying to choose between a Baby Ruth and Hershey’s Chocolate Bar. We just went with our taste buds. It was like the Mounds and Almond Joy folks proclaimed several years later, “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.”

We hear a lot today about an “RC Cola and a MoonPie” being the ultimate working-man and school-kid’s lunch combo of the Deep South. That is partly myth. Maybe, back during the Great Depression, factory workers and coal miners could buy an RC Cola and a MoonPie for a nickel each, making a ten-cent meal that kept laborers full.

But my parents would have fought a Cole Bros. Circus wagon full of Bengal tigers before they would send us to school with any kind of cola or candy for lunch. They did think nutrition. So, we went to “further our education” each day armed with a ham filled biscuit, or stewed tomatoes, or if we were lucky, a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

Now, after school, if we could scare up some change, nothing kept us from hustling over to Pat Houston’s Grocery and buying Milk Duds and a Goo Goo Cluster. We didn’t think Southern tradition. We never ever read the ingredient list. And we really didn’t ponder on any energy burst we might be obtaining.

We did, however, run over to the empty lot beside Betty Scates’ house and rip and roar nonstop through several football games, a round robin wrestling match, a tag game that lasted until everyone had been “it,” and then played “kick the can” until the sun dropped behind the trees signaling it was past supper time. We sprinted the mile to the house fully aware of the penalty for being late to the evening repast.

I can tell you one thing that kept our energy level on high octane. Pat Houston’s wasn’t our only charging station in our very small town. Drewry’s Food Center kept the Hostess SnoBalls up close to the front counter. If we were over on Lee Street, Pinson’s Grocery and Market carried everything we needed. Woodrow Kennon’s Store was down at the end of Broadway.

Leon would consume a Tootsie Roll from S & D (that was Sarah and Dee) Market on Cedar Street. And get on his bike and race alongside passing cars as they sped through the traffic light beside the Park Theatre.

Right after finishing off a couple of Three Musketeers and splitting a Zagnut, me and Bobby Brewer jumped a freight train and rode it down to Milan. It was an adventure and a half getting back home! Right before Daddy whipped me, I blamed it (partly) on the sugar.

We were walking out of Crutchfield’s Grocery when Leon introduced me to the art of pouring a pack of Tom’s toasted peanuts down the neck of a cold Coca-Cola. It was “larrupin’” good. I challenged him to an arm-wrestling contest on the spot. I think I could have taken him, but he had consumed just as much Coke and peanuts as I had!

Mom worried about our eating habits, what it was doing to our teeth, complexion, and long-term health. She pushed milk, turnip greens, and carrots on us. She often sounded like a broken record on the subject!

And then she would serve her signature dessert to top off many of our evening meals, Chess Pie. It bypassed fruit completely. It was whipped together with massive amounts of sugar, eggs, and butter. It was so sweet the dogs wouldn’t eat it.

Me, Leon, and David Mark would have a pillow fight afterwards in our small bedroom that lasted till three in the morning….

Respectfully,

Kes

kesley45@aol.com