Kids love the sweet appeal of Aisle 4
At the very last Ben Franklin in town, in a store that staked its reputation on small things — bobby pins and embroidery thread, plastic flowers and rubber spatulas — there is an aisle that seems to stretch forever, like a rainbow made of sugar.
Aisle 4 is no small thing.
It is big magic to small children, and bigger ones, too.
Friday afternoon, Courtney Kuhn is lost in the candy aisle. She’s in town from Kansas, visiting colleges and staying with her grandparents.
The grandparents who once lived just a block from this strip mall at 70th and Vine.
The grandparents who would give her $2 just for Aisle 4.
She’d spend her money on 200 Tootsie Rolls. “Whenever we’d come up, we’d always come here right away.”
She still does.
And they still have plastic bowls on the second shelf, bowls made just for filling with sweet things.
Pixy Stix. Gummi hamburgers. Slo Pokes. Sugar Daddies. Sixlets. Smarties.
Wax lips and Blow Pops and Lemonheads and candy necklaces and every variety of candy bar in the known world.
Enough gum to blow a bubble the size of Neptune.
Enough licorice to stretch to the moon.
Two girls from Mickle Middle School stand in the rainbow, unable to commit.
Hubba Bubba? Sour Patch Kids? Zotz? Fizzy Pop Rocks?
The girls ponder. They pass eight bins of Laffy Taffy and 11 bins of Frooties. They pass bite-sized Bit-O-Honey, chocolate coins, the ever-popular candy cigarettes.
They call them “candy stix” now, owner Carol Schoenleber says.
Aisle 4 is always busy, she says. After school. Saturdays. In the summer for swimming pool treats.
Kids learn to count here, emptying their bowls of the penny candy that Carol recently, reluctantly, doubled in price.
Friday, a shaggy-haired boy zips in carrying a skateboard.
A girl clutches three tiny cans, filled with candy that tastes like pop, eyeing the chocolate Skittles.
“They’re bad,” warns skateboard boy, grabbing three Fun Dips.
“My mom loves these,” he says.
Another mom waits, baby in a carrier, three of her seven older children walking Aisle 4, dazed by the decisions.
“I did this when I was little,” Mary Burroughs says. “I’d get a dish and fill it up with my favorite candy.”
Those days, she had a hankering for Jolly Ranchers and Sweet Tarts and candy cigarettes.
She still likes the candy aisle.
A grown-up kid, her eyes on the chocolate.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
Aisle 4 is no small thing.
It is big magic to small children, and bigger ones, too.
Friday afternoon, Courtney Kuhn is lost in the candy aisle. She’s in town from Kansas, visiting colleges and staying with her grandparents.
The grandparents who once lived just a block from this strip mall at 70th and Vine.
The grandparents who would give her $2 just for Aisle 4.
She’d spend her money on 200 Tootsie Rolls. “Whenever we’d come up, we’d always come here right away.”
She still does.
And they still have plastic bowls on the second shelf, bowls made just for filling with sweet things.
Pixy Stix. Gummi hamburgers. Slo Pokes. Sugar Daddies. Sixlets. Smarties.
Wax lips and Blow Pops and Lemonheads and candy necklaces and every variety of candy bar in the known world.
Enough gum to blow a bubble the size of Neptune.
Enough licorice to stretch to the moon.
Two girls from Mickle Middle School stand in the rainbow, unable to commit.
Hubba Bubba? Sour Patch Kids? Zotz? Fizzy Pop Rocks?
The girls ponder. They pass eight bins of Laffy Taffy and 11 bins of Frooties. They pass bite-sized Bit-O-Honey, chocolate coins, the ever-popular candy cigarettes.
They call them “candy stix” now, owner Carol Schoenleber says.
Aisle 4 is always busy, she says. After school. Saturdays. In the summer for swimming pool treats.
Kids learn to count here, emptying their bowls of the penny candy that Carol recently, reluctantly, doubled in price.
Friday, a shaggy-haired boy zips in carrying a skateboard.
A girl clutches three tiny cans, filled with candy that tastes like pop, eyeing the chocolate Skittles.
“They’re bad,” warns skateboard boy, grabbing three Fun Dips.
“My mom loves these,” he says.
Another mom waits, baby in a carrier, three of her seven older children walking Aisle 4, dazed by the decisions.
“I did this when I was little,” Mary Burroughs says. “I’d get a dish and fill it up with my favorite candy.”
Those days, she had a hankering for Jolly Ranchers and Sweet Tarts and candy cigarettes.
She still likes the candy aisle.
A grown-up kid, her eyes on the chocolate.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
Copyright © 2002-2009 Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved.