boyhood sketch 7. TOFFEE APPLES AND THE STICKY STUFF OF SIN

toff runoff left this flat yummy bit on the bottom

And where would a kid like me get money to spend. Allowances were unheard of in my neighbourhood. I could ask my Mom for a few cents occasionally and she obliged. For instance, when it was fruit harvest season, we all knew that down the street and not far along Welland Avenue, was a house where a lady made toffee apples. Red Toffee covered apples on a stick and she charged five cents. She kept them on her side porch for neighbour children. Mom slipped me a nickel. She kept loose change in a small woven beaded container with a lid. If she wasn't home or if she wasn't looking, I took a few coins. I felt bad about that but I did it anyway. I felt even worse about that on Sundays when Pastor Archie McGilvray preached. 

Mr. Slanishenue’s store now called Chocolate Etc.

But clearly I didn't feel guilty enough about stealing, because a couple of my friends and I would sometimes enter Mr. Slanishenu's corner store for one purpose, to steal. Two of us would choose a candy or licorice stick and go to the counter to pay and a third would browse and look busy but sneak a handful of various candies. We were ecstatic about our sneaky craft and our haul until the last time when he caught us and yelled at us as we ran, "don't you ever come back to my store." (The old store building remains today but has been transformed into a chocolate diner named Chocolate Etc.). God would get me later.