My granddad gave the women and older girls of the family each a box of chocolate covered cherries for Christmas every year. I dreamed of the day when I would be old enough to get my own box of those luscious cherries in a pool of creamy sweetness all covered with chocolate. What made the gift the most special was that it was given by my granddad. Well, by the time I became that magic age, he had quit giving the boxes of cherries. I guess he decided there were too many girls.
Actually, I have another theory about not getting a box of cherries. It could have been because of my sister just two years older than me. She had a nasty habit of poking holes or taking bites out of the chocolates in the Whitman Sampler box my granddad had in the house at Christmas time. If she didn’t like the filling, she just put the piece of candy back in the box. I’m sure my granddad had picked up a chocolate of two that had a bite taken out of it.
My sister wasn’t just partial to chocolates, she also did the same thing to store-bought bread without even taking it out of the wrapper. If there were teeth marks, they belonged to her. Maybe she was just testing it to see if they made good ammunition. That store-bought bread was perfect for squishing and rolling into little balls that we used to throw at one another. You sure couldn’t do that with homemade bread, and we would have had a bite taken out of us if we tried.
Don’t all of you go out and buy me a box of chocolate covered cherries. I think they might be a mite too sweet for me now.