When Grandma Was A Little Girl-Story #7

Story #7 - Collecting Coke Bottles for penny candy
We did not get an allowance when I was a little girl growing up. My father worked hard and mom made everything. My brothers and I would collect coke bottles and turn them into the store. I am trying to remember how much we got per bottle. I think it was 2 cents. It did not just have to be coke bottles it could be any soda pop bottle. The coke bottles were more plentiful. We would look along side the road or in the ditches for the bottles. People were careless and threw trash out of their cars onto the ground or roadside. There was a store called Fields Grocery about half a mile down the road from where we lived. We would walk down to the store and turn in the coke bottles. We could get the money or get candy in exchange. Well since we rarely ever got store bought candy, I always took the candy! Back then candy was only one cent or two cents. A candy bar was 5 cents. A coke cost 10 cents. A loaf of bread was 25 cents and a gallon of milk was 50 cents. If I turned in three coke bottles, that was worth six cents. That bought a lot of candy!

I remember that they sold two cinnamon hot sticks for 5 cents. They were cinnamon lollipops were red, square shaped and on a stick. They were hot as the cinnamon kind of burned like Red Hots. Red Hots were candies they sold too that came in a box and they cost 5 cents. They were cinnamon flavored and red in color and shaped like red beads or dots. It was a fun daring other kids to keep their cinnamon lollipop in their mouth as long as they could without taking it out. I could never leave it in my mouth for more than one minute. My eyes would water, my tongue burned and I had to breathe!

Some of my favorite candy was wax lips, teeth or the mustache; they came out during Halloween. Another wax candy was little soda pop bottles that were about 2-inches tall and less than ½ an inch wide. They had flavored liquid inside. They were 5 cents for a little six-pack in a soda carton. They were cute and fun to eat and drink. The wax was edible but we mostly chewed it and then spit it out when we were tired of chewing it. It was like chewing gum. I also liked the ‘dots’. They were dots of candy on paper. The paper was 1 -1/2-inches wide and 4 inches long. They had one flavor on each sheet. There would be about 5 dots across the paper and about 10 to 12 rows long. The orange dots were orange flavored and pink was cherry flavored. I used to pretend they were pills. I would play doctor and the dots were pills you could take. They also had two for 1 cent candy. I often got that kind because I got more candy! Zero was one of my favorite candy bars. They also had little penny tootsie rolls and other penny candy. A large Tootsie Roll was five cents.

My dad liked Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars. One day he brought an Almond Joy candy bar home for me. I tasted it and ‘yuck’ I spit it out! I did not like the taste of coconut! He laughed! I don’t know how old I was before I finally liked the taste of coconut. But now, I love eating Almond Joys and Mounds candy bars! I would have to say that today my favorite candy bar is either 5th Avenue or a Butterfinger. They taste a lot alike. Yummy!