It's the break in the song when I should say something special

[austin_dern]

We planned a couple breaks while driving back. The first was about an hour north of Columbus at Coon's Candy. This is a candy shop, as the name suggests, with all the miscellaneous little homemade candies and the other oddball candies, like strawberry Charleston Chews. We began stopping there on the way back from Morphicon at my first visit, when we discovered how wonderful it was, and it looks likely to be part of the con-closing ritual now.

This time I noticed they had photos and newspaper clippings from the store's past, and discovered that it was named Coon not because that made for a great icon of a raccoon candy chef but because it's the Coon family business. And the Coon family was apparently quite the social force in the town of Nevada, Ohio, based on the clippings of their names plastered over everything in the town. Also apparently there was a town called Nevada, Ohio.

We rooted around for a long while, considering things like what bunny_hugger's parents might like as a treat for watching over our pet rabbit (without being so much candy as to threaten their attempts to lose weight), and noticing stuff like they carry walking sticks with squirrel figures which stand atop them. bunny_hugger picked up some preserves made nearby, after considering but rejecting banana jam (on the grounds it'd be either great or awful, and the risk of awful too high). I added to a stockpile of what's really too much candy to be hidden around the house.

The cashier wanted to encourage us to come back soon, and we had to disappoint her by explaining how we were from Lansing and there was really only one time a year that we could sensibly stop over here. The cashier seemed to accept this and seemed to be impressed that big-city visitors made a stop here.

Trivia: The parasol used to repair Skylab on the first manned mission was stowed for launch in a spare experiment cannister, T027, designed for an Apollo Telescope Mount contamination measurement experiment. Source: Skylab: A Chronology, Roland W Newkirk, Ivan D Ertel, Courtney G Brooks, NASA SP-4011.

Currently Reading: Apollo: The Lost And Forgotten Missions, David Shayler.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't think Strawberry Charleston Chews that oddball, until I realized I haven;t seen that flavor in quite a while. I may not have been looking closely, I usually just go for vanilla and I know I've seen chocolate.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I have only rarely seen the Strawberry Charleston Chew. I think I may have encountered it first on the Internet and only later seen it in person. I think I'd had a favorable impression.

It's remarkable how a candy can just quietly vanish from sight, though. I don't know when I last saw chiclets, for example.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I used to see them all the time at the convenience store I went to to buy candy, when young. I don't think of them as particularly unusual.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I've seen Chiclets about, though not as frequently as some candies.