The best thing to do for an aging baby-boomer during tough times is to dig into the past and find some sort of comfort. I visited www.oldtimecandy.com recently and bought some treats that I remember eating in the 1960′s and 70′s. The visit to the website was terrific and the candy proprietors there are great, but I can’t say the same for all the candy I bought.

I bought a sample of chocolate Flicks, root beer barrels, Walnetto’s, Fizzies drink tablets and Space Food Sticks.

Chocolate Flicks are oversized Hershey kisses that were made by the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company decades ago. They were sold in cardboard tubes that look like toilet paper rolls (or der-der’s as I used to call them-I’ll explain later). They still come in the tubes but are now made by a different company whom I can’t recall. I found the Flicks to be quite good and very similar to the way they used to be, but maybe a bit more sugary than the old Ghirardelli Flicks. I recommend them.

The root beer barrels are pretty good too. I never ate much of them when I was a kid so I can’t say for sure. They arrived fresh and had a nice root beer sort of flavor so I give them a good rating.

I don’t know the history of Walnetto’s, nor am I sure of what they’re made of. I would suggest they’re similar to Tootsie-Rolls with little bits of nuts added. They’re quite unique, and they were a favorite of mine when I was a kid. My batch that I received was good. From what I can remember, they tasted just like they used to. I used to like them as a kid partly because I liked the name Walnetto.

Space Food Sticks were an odd thing originally made by Pilsbury during the late 1960′s and early 70′s. They were (supposedly) the exact same chocolate treat that the astronauts ate on the way to the moon and back. They came out in the grocery stores the same year as Tang instant orange drink. The original SFS’s tasted very much like the original PowerBar, except they were more “grainier,” much more artificial tasting. No one bought them because of the taste, they were just the newest cool thing. I guess you had to be there to understand.

The Space Food Sticks from Old Time Candy are made by a different manufacturer and actually taste better than the original. The new one’s taste like Tootsie-Roll’s but easier to chew and a bit sweeter. I didn’t think I was going to like them but they were really good.

The Fizzies…. Ah, my favorite sugar treat as a child… Tasted like dog shyte. Looked bad too. I bought a package of root beer flavor Fizzies. The original Fizzies were just like soda pop in the form of an Alka-Seltzer style tablet. This time around, it was horrible. After being disolved in a glass of water, the Fizzies tablet looked like water that had been sitting in a fish tank for too long. An odd brown color, and there was no fizz at all once the tablet was disolved. It tasted lousy too; just like old fish tank water. I was very disappointed but realistic; there were some ingredients in the original Fizzies recipes that you just can’t get anymore. I won’t finish the rest of the tablets in the box.

Overall, I recommend this online candy store and give them a good rating. They are great people and shipped fast and carefully. Some of the stuff I tried was good-some not-but sometimes you just can’t replicate the good old stuff. I will make further purchases from www.oldtimecandy.com and report back what I find.

And the der-der’s? When I was a kid I would take used toilet paper and paper towel rolls (and gift wrap rolls) and run around saying DER-DER-DER into them. Sorry, I had no video games to play in those days.

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