Cherry Cokes and Two Cent Candies

When I was a kid and school was out, I'd rush home for milk and cookies. And mom would give me a note and some money to run an errand for her. But first I'd bike down this long steep ill behind the house where we lived, down I'd go lickety split, free as a bird on the wing, faster, faster, faster still, never thinking of using the brakes, a childhood thrill, I fearlessly plunged down to the road below. I'd fly through the streets to the grocery store to see what they had to offer, sometimes flour, sometimes shortening and sometimes my favorite, SUGAR. I'd hide them among the brooms and mops for no one would ever look there and after work, with his ration book, dad would rescue my hidden treasures. It was wartime, you see, in America. Everything worth having was rationed. From the grocery store to the drug store, mom's note and money in hand, imagine this, with a note to the druggist and no questions asked of me, I was handed a carton of Old Golds and matches concealed in a brown paper bag. Then came my reward, at the soda fountain, I'd sip on a large cherry coke and on the way out, with two pennies left, buy a pack of caramels to go. Free as a breeze, I'd ride happily home just make it in time for our dinner. Then out to hopscotch with neighborhood friends or roller skate down the street. We'd play until dark and time to go home, no need to ever call us cause the Lone Ranger was about to come on and we had to be there in time to sit transfixed by the radio as our hero saved the West.