Tootsie Pop

I licked my way happily to the center of a red Tootsie Pop today.  I enjoy truffles wrapped in dark chocolate, but sometimes sugar covered sugar filled with the sweet taste of childhood is all I really want.  As I was untwisting the wrapper from this little gift, I was thinking about Bud’s Market.  When I was growing up the Snow Globe had two stores; one was Moore’s Grocery (those of you who know will agree when I say Moore’s is a story all its own, some of which I’m not qualified to tell), and the other was Bud’s Market.

Moore’s was a barefoot bike ride with my friends when we were old enough to go alone.  We dropped our banana-seated Schwinns in the middle of the doorway and skidded into the dimness, where we were allowed to go behind the counter to pick candy if we weren’t afraid of Blake.  Bud’s was way on the other side of the road, a little girl’s summer walk with Grandma.

For the first part of the walk I could skip ahead or linger behind, picking up interesting rocks, bent bottle caps, and other possible treasure.  The sidewalk meandered along, with those tiny purple weeds all little girls know are really fairy flowers peeking through the cracks.  It disappeared entirely for a stretch, went up a slope, proceeded along the side of the neatly tended lumber yard with its drive-on scale (“don't jump on there!"), and reached the corner, where it stopped meandering and marched along bravely next to the Hold My Hand So You Don’t Get Hit By a Car Highway.

What does all of this have to do with today’s Tootsie Pop?  Well, when I took off the wrapper and smoothed out the wrinkles, there was the Indian Chief shooting his arrow at a star.  My son didn’t quite understand why I was so smiley about it, so I told him “Duh!  The Indian on the wrapper means I get a free one!”  As I was explaining how I was able to return my coveted Indian Chief wrapper for a whole new Tootsie Pop at Bud’s Market when I was a little girl, I imagined myself swaggering up to the counter at Walmart Customer Service demanding my free Tootsie Pop and felt a twinge of sadness when I realized just how absurd that was.  I began to wonder why the Indian Chief was still there on my wrapper today.  Shouldn’t he be a bygone thing, just like Bud’s?  So I did what all curious folks do these days.  I Googled it.   

It turns out ever since the 1930’s Tootise Roll Industries has been trying to figure out why people have been bringing them their Indian Chief wrappers with an expectant smile, why to this day Indian Chief wrappers come back to them in the mail.  Bud’s Market is why.  Bud’s and many other little grocery stores in small towns across our wonderful, wacky, sweet, friendly country.  According to the company, the pictures on a Tootsie Pop wrapper were orginally meant to depict children at play.  If you unfold one you will still see those same children flying kites, kicking footballs, holding fishing poles, roller skating, hula-hooping, swimming, playing leap frog, racing soap box derby cars, wrapping May poles, playing marbles, pushing doll carriages. And dressed up like an Indian.  The Indian apparently appears on about one third of the wrappers, and he was never meant to represent anything extra special, just childhood which in itself is extra special.

From what I could discover, no one knows where the tradition of giving a free Tootsie Pop to a child who comes in happily waving an Indian Chief wrapper began.  But it is absolutely true that Bud himself gave one to me and to the other children in my town.  And chances were, the only thing I had bought in the first place was a single Tootsie Pop, so there went his entire profit.  Nowadays (shoot, did I actually say “nowadays” like I was my grandfather?), I can’t imagine where you can even buy a single Tootsie Pop.  They come in bags or bundles, with the lucky Indian Chief lost somewhere inside, kind of like me when I’m lost in the aisles of Walmart.

While I shop at places like Walmart, I have mixed feelings about it.  I have such fondness for places like Bud's and I think the world becomes a bit larger and more lost as they continue to disappear.  Like so many of us these days, I live a cluttered life.  I shop for my family and also for children who come to my daycare at every age and stage of childhood, meaning I need to replace the lost 1/2 cup measuring cup, restock the toothpaste and change the furnace filters, grab the iron fortified infant formula, the tropical fish flakes, and a copy of Green Eggs & Ham; Wallyworld saves me time, helping me find everything (and a couple of other things) in one stop.  And it saves me money, helping keep the cost of daycare down for hardworking parents.  It leaves me with just about enough spare minutes and spare change to enjoy a conversation about bygone days and a Tootsie Pop with my baby boy.

Still, I make it a point to follow a meandering sidewalk now and again.  They lead to places where folks put their creativity, their integrity, their heart into what they do.  Places where they never quite get rich but they often find a deeper fulfillment, where they go out of their way to make a bit of childhood magic simply because they know an Indian chief on a carefully unwrinkled red wrapper means they should give you a brand new Tootsie Pop.  Duh.

P.S.  Not all changes make me frown--I do love Google!  I found out the inventor of Tootsie Rolls named them for his five year old daughter Clara, whose nickname was Tootsie.  This made me smile because I often use "Tootsie Pop" as a nickname for the little girls at my daycare.  Everybody say "Awww, how sweet!"