I take my coffee with milk.: I removed my Stoopydoop Hat on put on my Thinking Cap

As I have mentioned in past posts, I enjoy reminiscing about my youthful days as a child, remembering a much simpler life where small things provided great pleasure. There are many sayings, products, TV programs, advertisements and music that made my childhood rich. After I explain my post title, I will share a few memories of my favourite treats from my past.

One series of commercials that played between cartoons in the 1960's were focused on educating children to be safe around the house and each one showed actors having "close calls". For example, one showed a child's toy left at the top of a staircase and the Mom almost tripped over it to an accident whose details were left to the imagination. The verbal message at the end of each ad was
"Be safe! Don't be a Stoopydoop!" I still hear those words when I do frustrating things like having to return to the house for my car keys or go back to the car for my grocery bags or "losing" a wad of photos that I was sure I had backed up on my exterior hard drive. "You Stoopydoop!!!"

So when I found my "lost photos" after searching for them six times, I called myself a
Stoopydoop! It is good to be able to laugh at ones self says Dina and I agree. And then the other old memory flashed back, I must have put on my "Thinking Cap". That was a request made sometimes by teachers or parents when we kids were having trouble with one task or another. If I had a 'thinking cap', I wonder what style it would be; like a tam, a toque or perhaps a beanie with a propeller! I imagine that it would be tight and somewhat uncomfortable to massage, poke and stimulate the brain. I could actually really use a Thinking Cap these days if anyone knows where to get one?

I eyed a box of Licorice Pipes at the checkout counter of a shop the other day and a of numerous labels, textures, colours and tastes came flooding back. I still like licorice today but there was something so fun about "smoking a pipe" as a child. Everyone knew it was lit because there were little red "ribby-dibs" showing the 'glowing embers'. And as if candy was not fun enough on it's own, there were all sorts of companies making it even better. Who did not like "playing with" Red Licorice Laces? Of course they are still popular today.

And speaking of pretend smoking, what about those "too skinny, too short" Popeye Cigarettes? They also has a little red food colouring on the tip so everyone knew you were really smoking. And, you could offer them to friends from the cool box and light it with your pretend "thumb" lighter. I would rather have those than down a can of spinach like Popeye did!

Chewing gum has always been a treat that lasts, even overnight for those kids (not me) who stashed their pre-chewed gum on their bedposts. Another way to pretend you were an adult was to "smoke" a Bubblegum Cigar. Gum was also creatively packaged as lumps of gold in little cloth bags so kids could pretend to be miners or just plain rich! The gumball machine provided a large candy coated treat for a penny and it was always a surprise to see what colour gumball dropped out. Packages of Chicklets and gum strips could last days if hidden from siblings. I always loved buying a box of Double Bubble at the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) It would last for what seemed like forever and each piece came with a cartoon. In my memory, the gum was hard and short lived on taste and the comics featuring Pud, had to be the lamest ever created.

Flavoured wax was molded into a variety of shapes as a form of edible-play. For a young girl who was forbidden to wear lipstick yet, popping in some bright red Wax Lips made me feel like a movie star. I think the Wax Whistle was ingenious, something you could actually get some sound out of and later chew, wow! I did always wonder why they chose yellow wax which was scarily similar to ear wax colour?

Fizzies, were an "Alka Seltzer-like" tab that could be dropped into a glass of water and produce a bubbly, coloured sugary drink. We actually had fizzy-hunts at our Sunday School picnic.

Ice Cream remains one of my favourite treats. As a kid, it was so fun to buy a Popsicle for 5 cents and share it with a friend. Sharing was expected on a product that had two sticks. Outside the store, you had to find something hard, usually the corner of a building and crack the popsicle in half. There was the added bonus if you saved the labels from popsicles, you could send them in to Popsicle Pete and get great stuff. I did that once and treasured my fat ballpoint pen that wrote in eight colours. Also the wooden popsicle sticks became an iconic craft item.

Some of my friends liked Lolas which had a unique triangle/pyramid shape. They were made of the same coloured "juice" but weighed a "ton" and stayed frozen for ages. I did not have patience for them as too much play time elapsed while you tried to eat every drop out of the awkward, sticky package (because there were starving children in Africa) I still love Creamsicles and in my youth, always loved a not-easy-to-find Jet (orange sherbet dipped in chocolate on a stick).

Another marketing success was the Buried Treasure. A mix of orange and vanilla ice cream was frozen around a plastic "surprise". We could only get these from the "Yummy Man" who drove his musical truck around the neighbourhood setting off all the kids to begging. When I look back on those plastic sticks, I realize how cheap they were but at the time, I believed that they actually were treasure.

Note the deceiving size of the prize on the label!

Candy was not something that we had every day, it was for weekends, holidays and special occasions.
A Chocolate Bar or a slab of McIntosh Toffee were treats to be shared by the family. It was only a couple of times during summer holidays when brother Mark and I were allowed to choose a whole chocolate bar to eat ourselves. It was for that reason that I once sneaked a package of Beech Nut Black Cough Drops into my bedroom and hid them in my sock drawer. I forgot about them for a couple of months and one day reached to the back of the drawer where my hand hit something damp, sticky and woolly. The open package of sweets had melted into a couple of socks and I had to secretly dispose of the candy and wash my socks. I learned that I was not talented at keeping secrets.

Brushing of teeth after any candy consumption was really stressed in our family. I have many memories of flavours, colours, pumps and tubes that marketers invented to sell toothpaste. By far, the most creative and fun stuff to squeeze onto your brush was Stripe. Mom use to buy a tube for the family as a part of her passion for "Christmasy" things.

I will not expound on all the salty snacks that we loved as kids but while I am on the topic of making treats fun, I must mention "Coloured Popcorn". Wow, what kid did not imagine that coloured popcorn kernels would produce a bowl filled with salty puffs of red, green, blue and yellow? I was never so disappointed after smelling that wonderful popcorn smell and listening to my favourite popping sound to have Dad lift the lid on the pot to reveal WHITE popcorn with little bits of coloured kernels attached. Sometimes childhood can be very tough, ha ha .

Before I was sidetracked with a nostaglic trip down sugar-high lane, I planned on sharing some photo from July of summer in Bayfield 2019. These were pictures that I thought were permanently lost.

The gardens are so well established now, it is a pleasure to do minimal weeding and sit back and wait for the blooms to pop.

Up to Midland to "play" with best bud Wend and walk down memory lane at Judy Collins Concert.

Dixie is showing her age but loves to be a part of whatever is happening.

Played in the studio using coloured pencil on grayscale photocopies of some of my photos.

Planted trees for Finn and Flora, a family tradition.

I did a record breaking amount of pickling and jam making last summer,
so fun and rewarding.

The garden has many visitors to keep us entertained.

I constructed a netting around my Milkweed to keep the caterpillars safe from the birds.

After planting numerous plants over three years that claimed to be male and female, I finally got berries on my Bittersweet this July.

I replaced my dead Lavender with a row of Sage, I can use some extra "sage" wisdom.

Various birds alight on our new birdhouse, gifted to us by Dina and Mark and created in New York by a former neighbour, John Guertin who we grew up with.