I have a lot of things that I really love to think back on.  When my loved ones pass away, memories are all that you have sometimes and treats have had a huge impact in that for me. I was thinking back on a memory that flashed back at me when I was shopping for my favorite candy boxes at the store the other day.  I was walking down the candy boxes aisle and then it came back to me a time when I was able to enjoy the same candy with my grandfather.  My grandfather has been gone for many years but the memory of certain candies can really bring back good times.  Like mother like son, because my mom has her own treat memories with my grandfather as well. 

To me it was fun to see the maple candies that bring back those memories in the store. They never come out but during the fall and Halloween season.  It instantly brought me back to being a child.  That is the power of marketing and taste I guess.  We used to visit my grandparents about twice a year and that was a big deal for my family.  We lived 10 hours north of them and would always drive down to the southern tip of Alabama to visit them.  They lived in the middle of nowhere a hundred miles away from a major city.  No city was actually large back in those days in Alabama.   It was wonderful to take those trips back to them.

But my grandparents lived next to pretty much the only gas station around for hours. Down a dirt road two miles away they had a gas station and it was filled with the best of candies.  My grandfather would take my and my brothers and sisters and put us all in the back of his truck.  He would give us each between 5 and 15 cents each.  It was a big amount of money to us back then and what was amazing was the amount of candy we could buy in this tiny town gas station.  

The old rusty truck we hopped in was huge.  It was always hot, but it was super cool to hop in the back and drive in the country.  It felt so wild and would never even be allowed in my city.  We would have been pulled over now and he would have been put in prison.  No harm ever came to us and we had a great time doing it.  But I remember riding in the back and hopping out and going into a store that looks like its barely standing.  It was so old and dusty everywhere. But the time spent looking for candy was so much fun. My grandfather would always get the same thing.  It was a pack of maple candies and he would go and share them with my Mom because those were her favorite.

These times are stamped in my head and heart and what seemed like a hot trip with a bit of a treat at the end is one of the few memories of my grandfather I still remember. I was still pretty young when he passed so, the memories are far and few. But next time you are eating candy with your grandparents or grandchildren remember those moments are simply all that may be left.