Old Fashioned Ribbon Candy
It was a hectic evening after the Christmas Eve dress rehearsal. I just stopped at Walmart to get a few things, but as my stomach growled I realized I was hungry. On big rehearsal days, it is hard to stop long enough to eat at all. Going to Walmart hungry can lead to a full cart of things that look really good even if they are not on the list. As I walked down the Christmas aisle looking for a gingerbread house my eyes were drawn to a green square box labeled in gold, Old Fashioned Ribbon Candy.
I picked up the green box smiling as I shook it. Instantly images of ribbon candy flashed through my mind from Christmas time as a child. Without having to purchase it, I could remember the taste and texture of the hard candy. It was a sweet memory though I didn’t really want to taste the candy again. I remembered all too well how it cut my tongue every time I ate a piece. Hard like a candy cane without the mint flavor, ribbon candy became sharp as it wore down. I still can picture the combination of the sugary flavor combined with the salty taste of blood coming from the lacerations on my little tongue.
Almost instantly I was transported to my Great Grandma Chase’s house. It was a little white square house on the corner of an old street in the little town of Evansdale. It took a long drive to get there from our house. In my earliest memories, I recall the four of us children sitting on her gold-colored couch, we referred to as the davenport. On those occasions as we all sat together, Great Grandma’s six little chihuahuas yapped and nipped at our heels from their hiding spot under her couch. Luckily I was too little for my feet to hit the ground.
I remember thinking she was very old. I would study the deep wrinkles in her face and hands as she talked to me. She always had a smile on her face and seemed oblivious to her nipping dogs that terrified us. I liked her long gray and black hair. It resembled a giant rose the way it curled around her face in big waves that never moved. She always wore a fancy barrette in it that gave me the impression that she always tried to look her best. One day I walked into her little bedroom, and to my shock, I saw her hair hanging on a plastic mannequin head. What a letdown to realize her perfect hair wasn’t real.
My Great Grandma’s name was Amanda and she had a lava lamp. In her little living room, the four of us would quietly stare at it while the adults talked on and on. Visiting Great Grandma always seemed to take an eternity, but the Lava lamp helped. The purple Lava stretched and slowly bobbed up to the top in waxy liquid balls transfixing our attention.
At some point in the adult conversation, Great Grandma would ask if we would like some candy. This would brighten all of our weary bodies after trying to sit and be good for so long. So off the couch, we bravely jumped and lined up in the narrow entryway to the kitchen. On a shelf too high for me to reach, Great Grandma had Old fashioned Ribbon candy stored in an old red glass jar
It never failed, I would always hear Mom reminisce about having the same Christmas candy when she was a kid. If the truth was told, the candy stuck to the bottom of the red glass jar might have been that old. David, the oldest, would get the privilege of breaking off the pieces he tugged loose for the rest of us to eat. Even though the candy was brightly colored I was always a little bit frustrated with the taste.
Each piece had a different shape. There were long green and white striped ones, and flat red ones. There were short yellow ones with white middles and of course, the classic red and green ribbon-looking ones. But no matter which piece we chose, the disappointment was the same. The flavor just never met the outside appearance. We would crinkle up our noses at each other as we tried to determine which piece tasted the best and the worst. We often swapped pieces as the adults kept gabbing, but no one came out a winner. Eating Old fashioned ribbon candy was not about satisfaction, it was more about the shared experience. And as I stood in the aisle at Walmart I remembered us with a smile.
My three brothers and I were a gang in those days. We stuck together at great grandma’s house. It was the four of us against that candy jar. In fact, our tongues still show battle scars. I didn’t understand then how important visiting Great Grandma’s house was. I couldn’t appreciate the significance of spending time with a woman who was born in 1900, but I do now.
I inherited the gap between my front teeth from Great Grandma. Praise the Lord for braces in the fourth grade to bring my teeth together. Both my oldest brother and I inherited her long fingers. From a young age, I shared her love for art. She was a dreamer but she had her struggles too. The deep lines in her face came with stories, many of which I will never know.
As I stood in the Christmas aisle in my moment of nostalgia I realized I am continuing her story.
I remembered my last moment with her at the hospital. I was in high school by that time. Standing by her bed, I held her hand and sang “Amazing Grace.” Even in the hospital, she wore her pretty hair. She looked so small and weak, but I remember how her face lit up as I sang. Her eyes got big as she smiled happily saying, “Beautiful. Simply beautiful,” over and over again.
She passed away shortly after that visit. She left her little house and her little dogs. She flew away from this world but she left her imprint behind. As I thought about her I rubbed my tongue against my teeth, and slowly put down the green box. I didn’t want the candy but I longed for a moment more in the old days.
Now that I am a mother of four my mind sometimes drifts to thoughts of her. I wonder what her life was like when she was my age. I wonder what her dreams were when she was young. But I am grateful my mother took the time to bring her four little children for a visit to share a corner of the room with her grandmother and to have a piece of Old-fashioned ribbon candy.