Uncle Peno

Have you ever came across something that made you think of your childhood?  Perhaps a movie or an old sitcom you used to watch?  Well, today someone mentioned fig newtons.  Yep, made me think of my childhood and childhood foods. 

Fig newtons were one of my dad's favorite cookies so we had them around.  I must admit, I really don't buy them now but I probably wouldn't turn one down if it was offered to me.  How about windmill cookies?  Did you ever eat them?  Do they still make them?  I think they do, but again; I wouldn't buy them.  Same goes for iced molasses cookies.  Somehow all those cookies make me think of my grandma's.  Not sure why.  Well, I don't recall Grandma Faye baking cookies but I don't know that I ate those cookies with her.  Granny Lake baked cookies, I loved her Snicker-Doodles.

My mother had an uncle who lived with us for several years while I was growing up.  After my grandmother died Uncle Peno moved in with Grandad Kern (his brother).  Every Friday my brothers and I would go over and have dinner with them.  Not sure how that started but we enjoyed it.  Now these is where childhood foods come in.

Uncle Peno would pick us up and the first thing we would do was go to the store.  Not because he had to have food for supper, but because he wanted to let us buy snacks.  We got a cart and went through the store and basically bought whatever we wanted.  Everyone should have an uncle like this!

We always made sure we got a can of shoestring potatoes.  Do you remember them?  I have eaten them a few times as an adult and it always makes me feel like a kid and brings back memories of Uncle Peno.  We also got cockle-burrs (these are burnt sugar peanuts -  not sure what the real name of the candy is).  And we could always buy pop; any kind we wanted:  black-cherry was a particular favorite. 

Now Uncle Peno didn't just let us pick out food we wanted; he spoiled us all year round.  At Easter he would buy us these giant Easter baskets full of stuff.  You know the kind, the ones the stores sell in cellophane wrapper. At Christmas he let us pick our own presents. 

Well, tomorrow is July the 4th and it makes me think of Uncle Peno.  Why?  Well, you guessed it.  Uncle Peno would take us to the fireworks stand and let us buy whatever we wanted.  Huge packages of firecrackers, smoke bombs, snakes, fountains, cones, bottle rockets, sparklers, tanks.  We could have our pick and were never told you have X amount of dollars to spend.  It was just choose what you want then he paid for it. 

Back at home we would unravel all our firecrackers and put them in coffee cans.  And the best thing was, we didn't have to share - we each had our own!  Firecracker wars then ensued.  We would throw them at each other.  Probably not one of the smartest things we ever did but we did it anyway.  I wonder why mom and dad let us?  They probably thought like I do; when they get hurt they will know better next time.  And if you didn't throw it in time your fingers smarted and your ears would ring for an hour or longer.  It never failed either that one of us would accidentally drop a firecracker in our coffee can.  That was quite an explosion!  After shooting all the firecrackers off we would go around looking for the ones that didn't explode.  You could then unwrap them and take the powder out.  Put all the powder together and put a punk to it to and watch what happened. Man did we have fun. 

Then that night we had all our night fireworks to shoot off. I have always preferred the ground ones, cones and fountains.  The ones that go up in the air are nice but I like the ground ones better.  I do like the popcorn type ones in the sky.  You know, it explodes then all these crackling noises and pops and lights flickering all over the sky?  I kinda like that. 

I don't enjoy the Fourth as much as I used to.  My dad passed away the day after so it brings memories of him.  I do like fireworks though and always think of Uncle Peno when I'm watching fireworks.