How Sweet it had been! The Corner Old fashion candy store

"How Sweet It's," announces the sign that welcomes travelers to the current day borough of Brooklyn. Anyone who spent his yesteryear inside the fifties recognizes these words bellowed by Ralph Kramden, the scheming bus driver from Gotham who drove over the core of the decade in a popular television sitcom referred to as Honeymooners. Equally memorable for him or her of the bygone decade for its sweetness and recognition could be the corner candy store. Today Sharon Johnson (retired Philadelphia teacher) and self-described "child at heart" nostalgically recalls becoming an adult in Muskegon, Michigan as well as the role candy stores played in her childhood. Lee-lee as Alice, a worker at Brinks candy store, affectionately nicknamed Sharon describes Muskegon as being a blue-collar small town with several candy stores that competed to the pennies and nickels in the schoolchildren. Brinks stood on the corner of Apple and Scott streets across from your public elementary school. Alice sold penny and nickel candies, and at Christmas time she'd liven up like Father christmas. Brinks also served food.reizhusten                           Your children socialized around the block or school yard. When asked to name her favorite candy, Sharon paused for a moment and said," I reckon that them all. However i sometimes obtain a longing for licorice wheels and root beer barrels." Psychologists claim that frequent nostalgic trips down memory lane aren't just the wasteful indulgences of your senior but contribute in the positive method to mental health. Author Marina Krakovsky notes: "Such reminiscence could be healthier than you imagine. Despite nostalgia's bittersweet rap and the oft-heard advice to reside in the moment, studies declare that the sporadic detour down memory lane can give your spirits a significant lift." (Psychology Today Magazine, May/Jun 2006) Based on researchers from Loyola University sojourns of just 20 minutes per day in the ancient days may have the advantages of giving you a contented outlook. Growing up having a father who had been a bus driver and a Kramden double, I came to be a frequenter of candy stores. 

                                                                                     

One store looms larger inside my memory than these do. Nino's was located on the corner of East 58th street and Avenue N in a part of Brooklyn generally known as Mill Basin. It was equidistant from the house and Mary Queen of Heaven, the parochial elementary school I attended. A shop lured neighborhood kids from blue-collar families on their way from school. During lunch time, Nino's was crowded with all the uniforms of Catholic schoolchildren needing to spend their Biggio, Candy Store,2 allowances or earnings from cashing in deposit bottles to meet their hankering for sweets. Funny, Irrrve never remember seeing adults at the candy store. The grownups spent their lunchtime consuming serious adult food at Sam's luncheonette or John's delicatessen. Nino, the store's owner and namesake, focused on his customers selling many different items. There were school supplies for example marble notebooks, homework pads (Egad! in the present school jargon agenda books) and loose leaf.
There are favors for very last minute moms who had forgotten party supplies for Timmy or Sally. A heap of cheap metal toys (now pricey collectables) stamped manufactured in Japan could possibly be based in the back from the store. A rack in the store's center bulged with comic books. Superman, Casper, and Wendy, Archie, Jughead went spinning as kids wanted their favorites. The greater scholarly-minded schoolmates passed on the superheroes for the series called Classics Illustrated. The illustrators transformed classic works for example Ivanhoe, Three Musketeers, and Robinson Caruso into comic book format. Most kids attended Nino's not for school supplies, toys or comics. They went along to satisfy their cravings for candy and to socialize with friends.

Eyes widened, small fingers pointed towards the penny and nickel candies enclosed in a glass case. Button candy coming from all colors and flavors dotted strips of paper some of the paper and candy were inseparable. Jawbreakers and Bazooka bubble gum must be enjoyed before going back to school. Any miscreant caught chewing bubble gum in college was given a stern look or worse punishment with the Dominican sisters. Candy can't only be sweet but fun. Remember fondly the big red wax lips and gum the same shape as cigars despite an authentic looking ring. As kids, we would chew away on candy or chocolate cigarettes in boxes or cases that resembled the true ones our parents puffed. "Meet me at Nino's after school" teenagers called together because they left childhood to hold out with the fountain. The fountain was a magnificent masterpiece of design manufactured from shiny wood and marble that wrapped around its sides. On the fountain, Nino created ice cream sundaes, splits and floats. All ice cream was hand dipped.

                                                                                                                                                                              There was no canned soda at a shop. Nino would mix seltzer with syrups. Kids would sip their cherry cokes, lime rickies and egg creams as the years spun by on those stools. Historically the old fashion candy store was part of the cityscape. Mother and pop candy store captured in a Norman Rockwell picture exists inside our memories. This is a little bit of Americana replaced by supermarkets and gourmet specialty stores. Driving under the influence the impulse for a lot of traditional candy try online candy stores or if you don't mind retro try the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain. Next time you are feeling a little blue grab yourself a licorice wheel, switch on Nickelodeon, enjoy an episode of The Honeymooners and ruminate using the bus driver from Brooklyn about "How Sweet It Is".