Oh, the Memories...

Do these mean anything to you?

They do to me.

These bottles represent one of my fondest childhood memories.

On the side of our house was a shed where my parents would put all the empty pop cans and bottles for recycling. That shed was like a kids treasure chest and the pop bottles were our gold coins.

In Portland pop cans were worth .5 cents and pop bottles were worth a whopping .10 cents which as a kid seemed like a fortune. 

We didn't have pop bottles all the time so when we did it was a real treat. My brothers and I would ask my mom if  we could walk down to the candy store. Think it was really called "Cindy's Mini Mart" but we always called it the candy store. The store was about 4 or 5 blocks from our house. I'm not sure why but I always felt like such a big kid walking down the street to the candy store. Almost like I had gotten permission to do something naughty that I shouldn't be doing but was excited to do it anyway. Or maybe I just thrilled in the thought that my mom thought we were big enough to go by ourselves. We walked the same distance to school by our selves each day, but in the opposite direction. There was something both exciting and scary about the route to the candy store.

If we were granted permission, which many times required a lot of persistent begging, we would gather .50 cent each worth of recyclable treasure. If I had to take .50 cents worth of cans that was okay, but if I was lucky enough to find 5 bottles then I would feel down right giddy.

When we got to the candy store we would cash in our treasure by placing our cans/bottles in the shopping cart that was always parked next to the cashier. He never actually gave us the money because he knew we were headed straight for the candy isle. He would just keep track of what he owed us which was never a hard task it was always the same. Always .50 cents. We never had to worry about sales tax, because there never was any. We could spend every last penny on candy.

We would spend what seemed like an eternity looking over the same candy that always graced the shelves of the mini-mart, but this was an important decision not to be taken likely. Even though we spent the entire walk to the store thinking about which spoils we would return home with it was never an easy choice once we actually entered the store.

Almost always the cheaper candies would win out over the larger candy bars. You could by a candy bar and go home with one thing, if it wasn't already gone by the time you got home, or you could by lots of smaller candy and make them last longer. That was nearly always my game plan.

Jolly rancher sticks, lemon heads, and penny gum were usually my top picks.

I love this memory. I love the good old candy store. I love that Pepsi started making these glass bottles again (although they are not exactly the same) so that I could remember this fond childhood memory. Good times!