Confections of a Young Woman...
 
The one thing that I never leave the house with (well, except for Bonne Bell lip gloss) is gum. I always have gum, and usually it's a sugarless gum like Extra(R).
 
When I was a little girl, my friends, Donkey and I would walk downtown to the dime store (yes, we had one when I was little, but it has long since been out of business) with a dime and get Bazooka Joe bubble gum. We would run out of the store, the door banging as it flung shut, and start walking up the huge hill to our homes. We would pop the succulent delight in our mouths and chew as hard as we could to get the bright pink disk to soften enough to chew easily. As we did so, we would read the comics on the back of the wrappers, laughing so hard we could hear the echo.The gum flavor didn't last for more than 10 minutes, so it was a good idea to buy two pieces.  
 
I was thinking about gum today while I was at a county fair parade. People were thowing out all the different types of gum you could think of, but I saw none of Joe. In fact, I saw cheap ripoffs that taste more like leather than like any type of bubble gum. Ok, maybe not leather, but it's not the taste I remember from childhood.
 
Then again, maybe it's the nostalgia I remember...