Journeys With Jani

There was a time when the best part of the corner gas station wasn’t the price of gas (though let’s all take a moment of silence for 79 cents a gallon). It was the candy aisle. The real candy aisle. Before “organic” was a thing and before your dentist started charging for trauma therapy. I’m talking about the 70s and 80s candy scene—back when sugar wasn’t the enemy, it was the main food group.

Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

🍬 Wax Lips & Bottles: Why Tho?

We were out here chewing on wax like it was a snack. Wax lips, wax bottles with that syrupy “juice” inside. Nobody questioned it. You just bit the top off like a gremlin and sucked out two drops of radioactive-colored sugar water. Then? You chewed the wax. Like gum. Or like a Crayola candle. We didn’t even care.

🍭 Fun Dip: Basically Edible Crack

Let me get this straight: we paid money for a white stick made of compressed sugar so we could dip it into… more sugar. And if we were real professionals, we ate the stick first and finger-dipped the rest. Sticky fingers and blue tongues were badges of honor. Moms today would pass out.

🍫 Candy Cigarettes: A Whole Era

Yes, we were literally out here pretending to smoke. Just puffin’ away on a candy stick like we were in a biker gang. No helmet, riding on the handlebars of someone else’s banana seat bike, and “smoking” a fake Marlboro. Honestly? Iconic.

🌈 Now & Laters: The Original Dental Workouts

You could lose a baby tooth and a friendship trying to chew a Now & Later. And don’t act like you didn’t shove three in at once. The name said it all—eat some now, and get it out of your molars… later.

😛 Pop Rocks: The Snack That Fought Back

It crackled. It popped. It fizzed. And someone always lied and said if you ate Pop Rocks and drank a Coke, your stomach would explode. We all tried it anyway. That’s how committed we were to candy chaos.

🍓 Strawberry Bon Bons: Every Granny Had These

Why did every southern grandmother have a purse full of these? You’d dig for gum and come out with a melted Bon Bon and three tissues. And we ate them! With lint and everything. Honestly, they slapped.

🍋 Lemonheads, Fireballs & Atomic Warheads: Painfully Delicious

Who remembers crying from the first 3 seconds of a Fireball? Or sucking the enamel clean off your teeth with a Warhead? We were into suffering for our sweets. And we liked it.

🍫 Reggie Bars, Marathon Bars & That Weird Chunky Thing

Reggie Bars tasted like peanut butter and baseball dreams. Marathon Bars were braided caramel masterpieces—extinct now, like common sense. And the Chunky bar? Who the hell thought raisins and peanuts belonged in the same square of chocolate? Still ate it. Still would.

💥 Garbage Pail Kids Gum

You bought it for the grotesque cards, but the gum? One bite and it disintegrated into a dusty shard of regret. And still—we chewed it. Because branding was everything.

The Bottom Line…

Today’s kids have freeze-dried gummy worms and candy shaped like sushi. They’ll never know the thrill of trading for a Jolly Rancher stick at recess or hiding a Ring Pop in your desk during math. And I don’t know if that makes me sad or smug.

But what I do know is this:

We were wild. We were sticky. We were jacked up on sugar and unsupervised.

And somehow, we survived.

Sweet, sweet memories.

XOXO, Jani