Growing up there was not an abundance of candy in our home but when Easter came our parents filled our baskets with chocolate, jellybeans and marshmallow treats. Visits to grandparents and aunts and uncles on Easter weekend brought a bounty of sweets; it was truly a candypalooza. I have four siblings; two sisters who are younger and are within four years of my age, and a brother and sister who are much younger than I am. Because of the age difference any memories of Easter and mouth watering candy can only be referenced to my oldest sisters and myself. The three of us gathered our candy and with baskets filled, I for one began the ritual of eating a piece, then another and another. I hardly had time to swallow and with induced chipmunk cheeks now filled with marshmallow and jelly beans I was out of control. On a sugar high I hovered over my sisters who were calculating, processing and devising a plan to make their candy last and last and last. I kept eating. They would line each piece of candy in rows in their baskets. I kept chewing. They would hold, study and admire like pieces of art, boxes with hollowed out chocolate bunnies. I kept dreaming. My sisters thought these bunnies were too cute to eat so they would keep them in their room until the hot summer months would force our mother to toss them out. Having watched my sisters behaviors, to what must have been for them an overwhelming candy experience, I decided I would help them out by helping myself. With my candy gone and with desires for more, I began eating jelly beans and bits of chocolate from their baskets. Because the candy was in rows this at first presented a challenge but then I used a similar technique, an illusion that I used when Mother made Indiana fudge. The pan of fudge would be partially eaten and instead of cutting out a piece I would cut a sliver straight across the entire pan and no one would know the difference. I loved mother’s chocolate chip cookies and one was never enough so I would remove all the cookies from the jar and then strategically place them back in the container in a loose manner by tipping and gently placing them so that there was a visual depth of those remaining. Applying these techniques to the rows and rows of candy that were in front of me, I would eat and then place each piece that remained further apart. The next challenge for me was, how could I eat the hollowed out chocolate bunnies? Unlike today, boxes were not sealed so the bunny could easily be removed and then placed back in their decorative container. Each chocolate bunny sat in a plastic mold that revealed only the front one half of the candy piece so I devised a plan; eat the back of each hollowed out bunny and then simply place them back in the package where they would remain until our mother would throw them out during the summer months. Although hollow, the chocolate was still thick so by using a knife I could slice off the back without cracking or breaking the front part of the bunny. It worked and no one was the wiser until I confessed many years later to them of my sweet misdeeds.
Recently I have learned that one of my sisters likes bunnies made of concrete, metal and porcelain. Did my behavior as a child affect her adult desires for bunnies? No one can slice and eat a bunny made of these materials. I wonder why she chooses to have bunnies in the garden when toads, frogs and dragonflies are available? I have observed in my other sister no disturbing signs that I can attribute to my wily childhood ways but I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. When will bunnies appear in her garden, doorstep or on a shelf. Horrified, I am wondering if my childhood behavior has shaped their thought processes? Concerned over how my behavior may have altered their behavior, last year at Easter I sent both of them a solid chocolate Easter bunny, attempting to atone for my youthful thievery.
I have got to get a grip, a hold on my chocolate desires for other people’s sweets. I thought the days of old were well behind me. I never took my children’s candy. Then recently my wife Linda, and I were visiting our son Tate and our daughter in law Tammie, and she asked if we would like a fudgesicle. I eagerly replied yes and then expounded on how much I enjoyed the Schwann’s fudgesicles as they are large and rich in flavor. I stated with great exuberance that they are like those I remembered as a child. During this conversation Tammie began to wonder and then asked how I knew so much about these fudgesicles. I confessed that I knew all about this taste treat because during previous visits, after everyone had gone to bed, I watched television and treated myself to a fudgesicle, sometimes two. She began to laugh so hard and then all four of us laughed as she explained with great relief that she thought she had been eating all of them. She thought she was out of control, when all along it was me. My old behaviors were resurfacing and it was affecting, once again those I love. I have got to stop this madness, although tempting, I must, I will control myself. Oh, what’s under these papers that Linda has on our desk? Mmmm, Dove peanutbutter and chocolate candies in an open sack. I wonder?
Russ Grimm 