Memories of The Candy Lady

When I was a child, my parents’ home was considered to be "in the country".  We were not on city water, we were served not by city police and fire but by the county sheriff and the local forestry department, we had dirt roads with no sidewalks, and even pizza places that said they delivered city-wide drew the line at driving "up the hill".

My parents’ home was the only structure on the left side of the road, and only Old Miss Jaton's place and the Harris' homes were on the other side.  The Davidson's lived one road over, as did "The Candy Lady".  And, except for Mr. Mariani's ranch across the creek, that was the extent of the neighborhood.  Not one of those homes had children under the age of forty, and so my sister and I had our animals and a few friends who lived a few blocks away to keep ourselves busy.

I can't speak for how my sister spent her childhood hours, but I spent more than my fair share of time playing with Old Miss Jaton's cats (ignoring my sister's warnings that she was really a witch, which couldn't be true.  After all, she had cats!), helping Mr. Harris take care of his rabbits and his chickens (which we'd inherit soon enough), helping Mr. Mariani with his horses and goats, looking at Mr. Davidson's polished rock collection (which was sparkly and some of it was gold!  Fool’s gold, sure but still!!) and, most of all, hanging out with "The Candy Lady".

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That wasn't her name, of course, though that was the nickname she'd been given and she more than lived up to it.  She was also my Great Aunt from my father's side of the family, and it was because of her that my parents had even known of the house being for sale.  "Don't pass this up", she told my dad.  "It isn't cheap but it's good land and the house is in good shape."

My parents drove down from the city, walked around the property and checked out the house.  I don't know how much they'd saved up by that point, but I've been told the asking price was slightly under $30,000.00.  I do know it was farrrrr more than they'd budgeted and that my father was leaning against the purchase - but my mother would not be swayed.  Her father had always wanted to own a farm ... and while he wasn't around to see it, I guess my mom wanted to somehow fill that dream for him.  My folks borrowed cash from everyone they knew, with a decent chunk coming from my Great Aunt, and moved in.  They still live there today.

Growing up "on a farm" was, for an active kid with a wandering imagination, great fun.  There were forts to make and animals to play with and insects to discover.  And when we'd get tired or bored, we could go visit "The Candy Lady" and know we'd get some "coffee" (heated condensed milk with two sugar cubes and a scant teaspoon of Folger’s Coffee) and, true to her name, be made an offer of having some candy, usually from a bowl of Brach's Pick-A-Mix.

We would sit on her deck with her two mis-matched dogs - Dutchie, the squat gentleman Dachshund, and Buster, the gray shortish hair mutt who constantly smelled of creek water and who was, truth be told, our dog.  Buster was lured from being our dog by the constant stream of treats and attention that he knew he could count on at my Great Aunt's home.  Buster was no dummy.

On quiet sunny afternoons, even Boots, the tuxedo Tom Cat we'd given my Great Aunt, would slowly sway by.  At his largest, I remember weighing Boots on the bathroom scale and that he added 22lbs. to my scrawny kid frame.  The dogs knew enough to steer clear of bothering Boots and he paid them no mind.  It was a peaceful existence for all concerned.

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The not great part of being an active kid with a wandering imagination was that I spent an extraordinary amount of time with my mother, sister, and Great Aunt in the hospital emergency waiting room.  I fell out of trees, off of swing sets, from the backs of horses, you name it.  I broke both my arms twice before the age of 18.  I actually knew - and recognized - ER hospital staff, especially the two guys in the casting room - when I saw them in grocery stores.  And it never failed that my father would be working a long shift when these trips to the ER were required, so we had to "borrow" an extra adult for the ER wait and my Great Aunt would come along for the wait.

My sister would walk over to my Great Aunt's house to tell her we needed to go to the hospital while my mother was wiping my forehead, or my shoulder, or my knees, or my hands clean before we drove to see what I'd broken, sprained, split, shattered, or need stitched up.  My father would return home to discover I was now missing my front teeth, had a new cast on my right arm, a split on my ring finger ... I'm sure he came to expect it.  And my Great Aunt, God love her, sat for hours in those plastic ER chairs watching my sister sleep while my mother and I explained, once again, what had happened to cause the latest visit.

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The other not great part of being an active kid with a wandering imagination had to be the nightmares.  My dreams were filled with scary phone calls from monsters who could reach through the telephone wires, being trapped in a wooden barrel never to be seen again, or creepy things in the attic looking down at me when I wasn't aware of them.  Those were the three recurring nightmares I had - on a rotating basis - and while they don't read as "scary", I find my description here doesn't do them justice even today.

I think it was in my early teen years that I had such a frightening dream that I managed to wake up the entire house with my yelling before I was even fully awake.  And the memory of having that dream would be triggered by an MRI experience in 2011.