Summer and Salt Water Taffy

Salt water taffy forever reminds me of that passage from being a kid to crossing the divide to becoming a full-blown teenager! The summer between 8^th and 9^th grade my aunt and uncle invited me to Cape Cod for the month of August to help take care of their two daughters. First, the simple fact I was asked to accompany them over my older, and much more sophisticated sister sent shivers of delight up my spine. Then in anticipation of spending the month on the beach my mom bought me a two-piece bathing suit – yes, a bikini!!  I’ll never forget it, it was a lovely shade of pale yellow with little flowers. The double bonus, it made my sister incredibly jealous – as being the oldest she was the one who was supposed to experience everything first, including wearing a two-piece! 

Cape Cod was simply beyond words – the house was just a few yards from the beach. We would spend hours on the beach swimming out to the sand bar, body surfing, just hanging out. It was fabulous!  I’ll never forget walking down the beach in my cute two-piece bathing suit and being whistled by two boys who even ran up to talk to me. I was confused – why were these boys (clearly older than me) talking to me? This was my first foray into dealing with the opposite sex, which I failed miserably at then, and admittedly throughout high school and beyond! (I was always thick-headed when it came to flirting). Still it felt strangely exciting and forbidden at the same time.

But what I remember most from this vacation was my first taste of salt water taffy!  I’ll never will forget it, we were walking in town and stopped into a country store. My uncle bought me a bag of salt water taffy. Here were these bit-sized pieces of multi-color chewy taffy wrapped in pieces of white paper. Each piece was better than the next – banana, strawberry, vanilla, licorice, every imaginable flavor. I was totally hooked, in love and craved more. From then on, every opportunity I would stop back at that quaint little store and buy another bag of salt water taffy. Funny, thinking back the excitement of traveling first class on an airplane, wearing a two-piece bathing suit, being chatted up by boys are all diminished by the memory of tearing into a piece of chewy taffy!

To this day, each summer I look forward with great anticipation to the arrival of those bit-sized, brightly colored tasty pieces of salt water taffy!  And with each bit I am taken back to that summer after 8^th grade feeling ever so grown up in my sweet yellow two-piece bathing suit (like any good Catholic girl, I still have a hard time calling it a bikini – good girls simply didn’t wear bikinis!).