My colleague Ingrid Abbott mused on seasonal memories in her July 11 column.
With the warm weather upon us, I too feel compelled to reminisce of summers past.
The recent heat saw me indulge in my first fudgsicle in at least 50 years. It was spectacular!
I wasn’t much of a fudgsicle guy in the carefree summers of my youth - more the popsicle type. Orange was my go-to flavour. Not overly ambitious palette wise, I was more of a popsicle purist I suppose. I am so old that popsicles then came with two sticks and had a crease in the middle so you could smack it on the corner of the store building to break it in half and share with a pal.
Such ingenuity was a marvel in the day and was a great way to keep two kids cool for eight cents.
Fudgsicles, drumsticks, revellos and the like were more in the 12 to 15 cent range and were a little out of my price range because I needed that extra nickel or two for a paper bag of penny candy - additional bike riding fuel!
The frozen treats and the penny candy were all readily available at the corner store and in my neighbourhood, there were a lot of them back then. My parents would often send my brothers and I “up to the store” for milk, bread and other last-minute necessities.
The corner store was a key destination on daily summer biking sojourns.
A favourite haunt of ours was Spanish banks for all the obvious reasons.
We would not ride our bikes to the beach as the crow flew, however. No, we would plan our route via a complex set of layovers. “Tufts” for a quick Freezie and some gum, “Blue Moon” for a pea shooter and a bag of peas and then “Bings” for the final frozen energy snack and more candy before landing at our destination.
The corner store was a marvel of community convenience and although they have been dwindling in numbers over the years, with new community zoning in place, they are poised for a comeback in many forms. I’m all for that.
