Mia Sarago, 9, of Carlisle, picks out treats at Georgie Lou's Retro Candy and Gifts in Carlisle.
When I was girl, a candy bar was a dime: chocolate, no nuts, please. Gum, unless it was penny-gum from the machine at the grocery store, cost a nickel.
A thumb-size wax bottle filled with pleasantly unidentifiable fruit colored liquid - fruit my eye - would set you back penny or two, or you could buy with your penny a paper straw filled with fruit flavored sugar - more faux-fruit.
I don't remember the cost of the paper tapes covered in rows of pastel colored sugar dots, but there always seemed to be enough money left over for at least an inch or two of those.
Stephanie Patterson Gilbert behind the counter of her Carlisle shop, Georgie Lou's Retro Candy and Gifts.
Contrary to how this sounds, I did not spend my childhood wandering the streets with my pint-sized patent leather pocketbook, sale-shopping candy. I just have a relatively good memory as far as sugar is concerned.
I have no idea when my, albeit guilty, sugar obsession developed. Somewhere between my green-vegetable-orange-vegetable-fiber-and-protein-plate childhood and my the-soda-is-free after school job at a movie-theater - I was, ironically, the candy-girl - sugar became a thing.
My mother has always carried a pack of mint-flavored gum in her purse. To this day, she'll pull out a stick, tear it half and ask if you'd like to share. Share? I'll take the pack, please.
All of which brings me to one of the reasons I love this job. I can go to a candy store in Carlisle, Georgie Lou's Retro Candy and Gifts, and call it work. I can buy homemade fudge and a cunning, cellophane wrapped Chuckles and call it research. You should have such a job, huh?
Our blissed-out memories of standing in front of a candy counter with a dime or two in our sweaty fists, mentally debating the merits of Laffy-Taffy over hard candy, is one of the reasons Stephanie Patterson Gilbert, 42, opened the shop on W. High St., which she operates with help from her husband, Harlon Gilbert, and her sons, a little over five years ago.
She wants to bring back that excitement and fun for all of us.
I called Gilbert about the Bunny Hop event she organizes in downtown Carlisle - she's also the mastermind of Carlisle's Spooky Saturday. About an hour later, I was in her shop buying fudge. How'd that happen?
The store is wonderful. If you have dream-candy, especially an old-fashioned kind, she probably sells it. Everything from homemade fudge to root beer barrels to Swedish Fish - Gilbert's favorite - to bacon flavored lots-of-stuff. She also has retro toys, gifts and 90 kinds of glass-bottle soda.
Anyone up for a bottle of Frostie and a game of jacks?
Gilbert, who is a Carlisle native, said the third-annual Bunny Hop is a way to give children 12 and under a fun afternoon and bring people into the downtown shops. On Mar. 28, children can follow Gilbert's map to participating downtown stores to collect holiday treats.
Gilbert keeps the participating shops a secret until the event, so it's like a hunt.
Everyone is encouraged to wear their Easter best. Gilbert said it's something of an Easter parade - a lot of happy children in Easter hats and Sunday shoes.
Gilbert told me owning a candy store was not her original life-plan, but "what a great job."
What: Third-annual Bunny Hop in downtown Carlisle.
When: 12-3 p.m. on Mar. 28.
Where: The hop begins at Georgie Lou's Retro Candy and Gifts, 56 W. High St., Carlisle.
The shop's web address is www.georgielous.com.