Posted: Friday, October 29, 2004 7:00 pm
The first thing Linda Throckmorton wants to know is when.
When is the column running?
Before Halloween?
Or after?
Because if it's running before the trick or treaters arrive, she wants to be ready.
She doesn't want to feel like a sucker. (So to speak.)
Last year, Linda and her husband, Tom, handed out 580 lollipops to little vampires and Martha Stewart look-alikes on Southwest Ninth Street.
(Over on Dakota Street, we ate half the bowl of Milk Duds ourselves.)
Why the rush at the Throckmorton home?
Well, for starters, Linda and Tom ain't handing out Tootsie Pops.
Each lollipop they dispense is stirred, poured, wrapped and sealed by Linda herself in the basement of their modest ranch home.
And when the doorbell rings, the Throckmortons don't open up and drop suckers in pumpkin buckets and shoo the goblins away.
Nope. Each child (and parent) is invited in to view the sugary selections and pick their favorite.
"It's a hoot," says Linda, mother of three grown children. "I love it."
On Thursday, she was in the middle of green apple-flavored frogs and root beer horseheads and grape mouse ears when I stopped by to see her.
Linda is in the lollipop business. Note: She prefers lollipop to sucker. "Sucker has a negative connotation," she explains.
She started The Lollipop Place 10 years ago, a few years after she dabbled in lollipops as a fund-raiser for her daughter's singing group at Lincoln Christian.
These days she sells her lollipops 80 flavors, 60 shapes online, by mail and at the Omaha farmer's market. Her son, Greg, peddled her pops at Lincoln's Farmers Market this summer and pocketed $3,700 for college.
In the beginning, Linda loved the business because she could be home with her kids and make a little cash at the same time.
Now she just loves it.
She makes lollipops for bridal showers, as baby announcements, for birthday party favors.
She spends her winters in "research and development."
And after 10 years, she can tell you that strawberry suckers lose their appeal after May. "They're all strawberried out."
That caramel is popular in the fall.
That women like cheesecake pops and men like root beer.
One man told her he quit smoking with her lollipops. A woman said she lost 30 pounds substituting her suckers for snacks.
(A "mini" lasts 17 minutes, Linda says. Longer than two cigarettes or a bag of Butterfinger bars.)
Neighbor kids stop by after school to pick out a sweet treat.
All week they've been asking about her Halloween selection.
She's working on it, she tells them.
Last year, she made 150 lollipop ghosts and ended up giving most of them to the Salvation Army because the kids didn't go for them. (Hint: That's when you start tossing them into buckets, Linda.)
They preferred the cars with Skittle wheels and the confetti suckers with Nerds.
She'll make sure she has plenty on hand this year.
Usually the trick or treat line starts at 5.
It snakes down the driveway and onto the sidewalk.
Kids come by the van load.
They know about the hot Halloween stop because Linda has gotten around over the years. She demonstrates lollipop making to Girl Scouts and day-care centers and 4-H groups.
This year she's making cinnamon lollies just for the parents. (She gave them up for three years after a little girl thought she had a cherry pop and was devastated after licking spicy cinnamon instead.)
One little boy who lives around the corner wants root beer. So she'll make root beer.
She's going to make fancy lollipops with ribbons that look like wands.
"I thought I should do a lot of those for the little Disney princesses."
She's not nervous about the crowds tonight.
But she is nervous about one thing: her neighbors.
Last year the woman next door told her she bought a dozen bags of candy.
After that was all gone she gave away all her apples and oranges.
Then all the nickels in her purse.
"This is something we have really enjoyed," says Linda. "But everything has a ripple effect."
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.