Penny Candy

Ahhh. The smell of spring. School recess time. Jumping rope and penny candy. Red hot dollars. Root beer barrels. Sugar daddy lollipops. And my favorite: boxes of chalky, yummy candy cigarettes. Oh, and the soft pretzels too.

Sugar and carbs. What more could a kid want to refuel mid-day? When I was a kid, we could buy candy and soft, doughy pretzels at recess time. We squirreled away our coins to indulge in our favorite treats. The pretzels were a bonus; hey, it was Philadelphia—the pretzels were a requirement. The money transactions on the blacktop were simple enough: exchanging coins for smiles. The grueling chores of school life were briefly replaced with sugary ecstasy; penmanship was exchanged for pretzels with just the right amount of salt.

Unhappy dentists must have rebelled, though. Today, school age kids are lucky to even have twenty minutes of recess time; twenty minutes is not much time for fresh air, for running around. Oh, and forget about buying candy. Or pretzels.

Back in elementary school, I still remember one method of discipline that was used on Patrick, who was the kid in my class who talked too much. The teacher made him sit in the closet. No, it wasn’t a time-out on a chair facing the closet; he was IN the closet. One of those days, Patrick rose to the occasion, though. He sat in that closet and ate the recess candy. It was a delicious victory for all of us.

I believe God wants us to enjoy the good things in life—in this case, sugar and carbs. It doesn’t seem right to go too far to the other extreme without the goodies; without the fresh air. The moderation is the challenge. Like my fortune cookie paper said: “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”