The original Life Savers flavors: Pep-O-Mint, Wint-O-Green, Vi-O-Let, Choc-O-Late, Cin-O-Mon, Cl-O-ve, Lic-O-Rice.

-O- how clever. -O- how delicious. -O- brother! Life Savers are tasty. Wild Cherry’s good, wintergreen can hit the spot, Pep-O-Mint burns the inside of your mouth. They used to have a pack called Fancy Fruits – delish; there was a grapefruit-flavored one in there. I’ve eaten thousands and thousands of packs, always using my fingernail to push the next candy to the top of the pack, so that at pack’s end I’d have a perfectly hollow, intact package. That’s how the professionals do it.  

Charms hard candies are blood relatives to Life Savers. The U.S. military life raft survival food packet has nothing to eat but Charms sourballs. Their acidity stimulates saliva flow, a welcome occurrence for dehydrated, cotton-mouthed lifeboaters. I know things about candy, not to be confused with chocolate. Chocolate is its own cult thing and I try to be better than that. I’m talking about candy: chewy, sour, sugar-coated, crunchy, hard, jelly-centered, powdery, nutty, nougaty, caramel-filled, brightly colored, oddly shaped candy.

From a little boy until about five minutes ago, I consumed mass quantities, ’round the clock, entire packs, never barfed. On my way to school, on my bike, I’d stop at Gus’s Liquor store and load up. Stole the money from my mom’s purse. A bag of jelly beans, a box of Boston Baked Beans, a box of Lemonheads. I’d open ’em and pour ’em into the front pockets of my pants. One by one, I’d munch on the candy during class and pretty much be on empty by lunchtime. Never got caught, never shared. On the way home from school a group of us kids would stop at the bank, where they had bowls of hard candy at each teller window. We’d pull up to the front door, throw our bikes down, stride right in just like we had an account and take two or three candies from each teller station and walk out. No problem, this went on for years. When I got home my mom would be pissed upon examining my salt-and-pepper school slacks, the pockets of which were sticky and stained with rainbow colors. Her, “How’d the hell this happen?” Me, “How should I know!”  

Several times a week we’d bike to the mall, Stonewood. Penneys had a pretty solid candy counter and if you had, say, a buck, you could score big. They sold candy by the pound and had a wide selection, and the old broads behind the counter hated us. We were oh so hateable. I’d get on my tippy toes and just dump my handful of sweaty coins on the glass countertop and start rattling off my order. “I’ll have seven cents worth of spring cherries, eight cents of gumdrops, fifteen cents of the red licorice. No, not that one, the little square ones, ya! Umm, twenty cents of lemon drops, how much is that?” A line would start to form behind me, but I was here first and I was a paying customer, and I was a little kid and had no sense. After twenty minutes the battle-ax behind the counter wouldn’t even bother to count my money, just kinda threw my purchases at me and hissed me away.  

Gum is its own basic food group. Rainblo gumballs were good, not the little ones, but the ones the size of a Super Ball. They came in a long pack of about ten. Pop one in your mouth, chew it till the crunchy coating and sugar were gone and then spit it out into the street. Bazooka, Dubble Bubble, Fruit Stripe, Teaberry, bubble gum cigars, Big Buddy gum sticks (a gummy challenge even for professionals), and perhaps the greatest gum of all – Hot Dog Bubble Gum, those cinnamony miniature sausage tubes we typically got from the Little League snack shack.

If we had any money left after Penneys we’d go to Farrell’s. They had soda water for two cents and a solid penny candy assortment; for a dime, you could do some damage. And then Mrs. Ducharme was a checker at the Market Basket (all in the same mall, just blocks from my house), so we’d go in and say hi and then sometimes I’d steal a pack of candy on the way out – no one would suspect the Ducharme boys so I’d just ride along on their good reputations.

The Gallatin Market and Community Pharmacy had good candy and we’d make mountainous hauls: Hot Tamales, Jolly Joes, Charms Blow Pops, black licorice, Reed’s (hard candy like Life Savers, but no hole), SweeTARTS, Spree, Fire Stix and Watermelon Stix, jawbreakers, toffee peanuts, Red Hots, Fruit Cocktail Imperials, Abba-Zabas, Big Hunk, Pez. Just big ol’ bags full almost every day, natural as breathing … I never stopped.

Well into my fifties I continued pounding candy 365. My choice of careers landed me a desk job, so what else could I do? I installed a dozen tall Tupperwares filled with treats in my office. Coworkers would sneak in when I was away from my desk to get a handful, not wanting to encounter the fat, strung-out candy addict face to face. Butterscotch discs, Skittles, Atomic Fireballs, Jolly Ranchers, Jujyfruits, sour belts, Necco wafers, and when the season was right, their amorous cousins, candy hearts.

At home after work, I’d scarf dozens of after-dinner butter mints while reading in bed. Then, one day, the Chicklets came home to roost. Massive toothaches. Trips to the dentist – the evil torturers of the medical profession. Talk about a trade that has made absolutely zero customer-friendly advancements in half a century! “Oh, we need an x-ray, put this eight-sided, industrial-grade cardboard up near the roof of your mouth. Ah, close your mouth slightly. Now hold it in place with your pinky and index fingers. Hold real still.”  Hold real still?! Crap, I can’t move, the sharp edge of the cardboard has flayed open the roof of my mouth like the blade of a fishing knife. “Oh, that’s unfortunate, but just hold on, we need to do it one more time, we didn’t get the exact angle we need; here, let’s put this 80-pound sandbag back on your chest so you’re protected from the gamma rays …” Those flossing-every-day bastards. Novocaine was first used in 1905. Does that make you feel like you’ve hitched your wagon to an innovator? How about the Bride-of-Frankenstein syringe dentists use to literally troll for a nerve: “Huh! Whaddaya know, I think I hit one! Are ya numb yet?” So now I have three implants and basically, a post–root canal crown on every other tooth. 

There’s a couple of dudes at work who brush their teeth – at work! During the day! In the public bathroom.! Well shit, aren’t they just the responsible teeth owners. Not me man, I still have my pride – and my f’n manhood. I’m going out with bad breath and pack of Life Savers in my pocket.