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Sweet Remembrances: Halloween Candies of the 1950s and ‘60s

Sweet Remembrances: Halloween Candies of the 1950s and ‘60s

By Leo Racicot

Part of the magic of trick-or-treating for kids in the 1950s and ’60s was the different kinds of candy we’d find when we got home and dumped the contents of our trick-or-treat bags on the bed or the kitchen table. Because — as we walked from door-to-door in the dark, spooky night, we couldn’t always see what neighbors were plopping into our bags as we greedily opened them wide. Marie would drive Diane and me to better parts of the city: The Highlands (where she lived and knew the folks and friends whose homes  she took us to), sometimes to Andover Street “where the wealthy homes were” where she was sure we Halloween pirates could plunder some serious loot.

These days, Halloween isn’t the bare bones door-to-door night of fun it was in my time; it’s evolved (some might say devolved) into a months-long juggernaut of celebration equal in scope and scale to Christmas. My neighbors’ children, Loc and Phan, were asking their dad to take them for their Halloween costumes in August. When their father told them it was much too early to do that, that stores didn’t yet stock for Halloween, Loc looked up at him and said, with assurance, “You can buy them online, silly!”

But I began this chat intending to sing the praises of Halloween candies, many of which you don’t see anymore. To my taste buds, candy isn’t the same as it was when Diane and I were kids. So many have been discontinued. So many don’t taste the way they used to. On the rare occasion that I get a craving for a chocolate bar, I’ll add one to the checkout belt at Market Basket, hoping to relive the yester year glories of it, only to find the flavors I remember have been eliminated. A disappointment for my palate and for my taste-memory..      Here’s a list of what used to be what trick-or-treaters would find in their candy bags when they dragged home from a long night of Halloween pillaging:

 Fizzies: Fizzies were small, round tablets. They came in a small packet. These tablets were usually red, orange and purple depending on the flavor(cherry, orange, grape) they produced. Plopped into a large glass of cold water, they began to fizz much the way Alka Seltzer fizzed, making the water the color of the Fizzie. Kids loved them because they loved watching the colorful, bubbling action. Moms liked them because they weren’t as sugary sweet as tonic (soda pop). I knew a couple of neighborhood kids who let the tablet dissolve on their tongue, sticking it out after, for shock value and for bragging rights (“See how purple my tongue is!”) I wasn’t brave enough to eat a whole tablet but did like the drink Fizzies created. Fizzies contained cyclamates, artificial additives. When studies showed how unhealthy over time these could be, Fizzies were removed from grocery store aisles. I doubt anyone born after 1968 or so would know what they were.

Candy Cigarettes. The name is self-explanatory. These were little sugar sticks made to resemble real cigarettes. They were more for making kids look/feel cool, “smoking” like they saw their moms and dads doing. After we got tired of pretending we were smoking, we could eat the stick. Cigarette sticks disappeared from store counters after the government deemed them to be a trigger for kids to later on in life become smokers. Studies have shown they led growm children to become lifelong cigarette smokers and that tobacco companies were behind the manufacture of candy cigarettes, brainwashing children to think cigarettes were safe, just like candy.

Seven-Up Bar. I loved, loved, loved Seven Up bars; they consisted of a long “train” of chocolate “pillows” or sections. Each pillow contained a different flavor of confection: coconut, butterscotch, buttercream, fudge, caramel, maple cream. orange jelly and Brazil nut. The great fun of a Seven Up bar was eating your way through it, eager to get to your favorite “pillow”. Ultimately, the Seven Up bar with its multiple flavors became too costly to manufacture and the item was discontinued.

Wax Lips:  Every kid hoped someone would drop a pair of wax lips in his/her trick-or-treat bag. Wax lips were made of paraffin, super oversized, swollen lips that kids would then wear as they walked the candy streets. They were one of the most popular sights on Halloween night.  When you got tired of wearing them, you took them off and ate them, working them like chewing gum. They were eventually banned as health hazards but I remember seeing them as recently as the ’80s in Jack’s Joke Shop on Tremont Street in Boston.

Crackerjack Prizes; Crackerjack boxes still contain a prize inside but compared to the treasures they held back in the day, the prizes nowadays could be called crummy, not worth the popcorn and peanuts you have to eat to reach down to them. In Crackerjack boxes, I found whistles (that really worked), magnifying glasses and a mini-locomotive with moving parts and a reflecting light that shone in the dark. The best prizes were costing the Borden Company an arm-and-leg so manufacturers changed over to cheaper, less appealing prizes: fake paper tattoos, stickers, little tic-tac-toe games.  The dangers of a child swallowing a whole whistle or train caboose were too real. That was the end of elaborate Crackerjack prizes.

Licorice ropes. Licorice ropes came coiled up like snakes. As you ate the candy, the “snake” uncoiled. It was common for kids to bring them along to the movie theater where chewing on the licorice rope would last you through the whole movie. After, as with Fizzies, you’d boast to your fellow moviegoers by sticking out your tongue to see whose mouth was the blackest, the reddest.

Bubble Gum Cigars   As with candy cigarettes, bubble gum cigars were designed to make a kid think he was smoking a real one. Bubble gum cigars looked like real Coronas, Havanas and Perfectos down to the elegant cigar bands and boxes they were displayed in in variety and candy stores of the time. Again, as with cigarette sticks, it was believed this gum subliminally encouraged kids to take up cigars when they got older so these, too, disappeared from the culture.

Wax Syrup Bottles  These were great fun — tiny bottles made of wax with colored liquid inside them. You bit off the top and drank the fluid, a sticky, sweet drink that nevertheless provided just the right refreshment on a hot summer’s day. After emptying the bottle, the wax could be chewed. When our mother saw this item, she said it reminded her of her own childhood when she and her friends would chew tar.  I thought she was giving Diane and me the business until I read in one of M.F.K. Fisher’s books a description of her and her siblings doing the same. Kids in the’30s and 40s chewed road or roof tar as a cheap substitute for chewing gum.

Many of these delights went away once health officials gauged how unsanitary, unhealthy and downright dangerous they were. But while they lasted as common confections to be longed for every Halloween night, they helped turn a magical holiday into a memorable one.

Can you think of candies from your childhood that are no longer available? I’m sure I missed a lot. My all-time favorite for years was Welch’s Fudge candy bars. These disappeared years ago but to this day, my mouth remembers how they tasted.

_____________________

Licorice ropes

Welch’s candy bar

Wax syrup bottles

Fizzies

Wax lips

Candy cigarettes

Seven Up bar

Trick or treaters in 1960s

Diane & Leo ready to hit the streets in 1959

Seen & Heard: Vol. 43

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Book Review: Sword Beach: D-Day Baptism by Fire by Max Hastings (2025). Hastings is a well-known British journalist and military historian. This book details the experience of the British forces at one of the five beaches on which Allied forces on D-Day. Most of us are familiar with the two beaches assigned to the US Army which were code named Omaha and Utah. The British landed on Sword and Gold; the Canadians on Juno. (Hastings shares that British planners named these three beaches for fish, as in Swordfish and Goldfish. Juno was initially called Jelly as in jellyfish, until Winston Churchill decreed the name too wimpy and changed it to Juno.) I’ve read much about the US experience on D-Day but was mostly oblivious to what happened in the British sector. This account includes the 6th Airborne Division which dropped inland from the British beaches as the US 101st and 82nd Airborne did in the American sector. Notably, British glider-borne troops proved decisive in the opening minutes of the attack. There were two bridges inland that were critical for linking the invasion force with the airborne troops further inland, so these bridges had to be seized before the Germans could demolish them. Several gliders filled with troops landed immediately adjacent to the bridge. Unlike troops delivered by parachute who are widely scattered when they hit the ground and take time to assemble, a successful and accurate glider landing – which these were – delivers a mass of troops right on the objective. In the big picture, Hastings acknowledges that the British plan to rush inland and seize the major city of Caen on the first day was unrealistic, but that the sole focus on making it onto the beach kept troops from training for what to do once they were ashore. This training gap made a mission with only a slight chance of success unfeasible. However, Hastings says that whatever the shortcomings of the British, the German’s failure to get nearby tank units moving promptly towards the beachhead was the critical mistake on June 6. While the allies were not able to immediately break out of their beachhead, they were able to expand and reinforce it enough to withstand whatever else the Germans threw at them afterwards.

Art Exhibition: America in the Making at the Addison Gallery of Art, Phillips Andover. The Addison is a superb museum located 20 minutes from Lowell. Admission is free and new exhibits seem always to be on view. The current show is “America in the Making” which draws on the Addison’s collection to chart America’s journey from the Declaration of Independence to the present as reflected in the art of the time. The exhibit fills the entire museum and is hung chronologically with portraits of colonial era merchants, the elite in the new democratic society, giving way to immense landscape paintings that reflected westward migration and the Manifest Destiny doctrine. Then as the nation modernized, artists addressed the complexity of life by turning from realism to abstraction. How artists respond to current times in the US remains to be seen, however, the Addison does not take federal funding so is not subject to the same government censorship that curtails what can be displayed at the Smithsonian and in our National Park Museums.

Obituary: Harry Lew (1884-1963), New York Times, October 21, 2026. As a historian, the obituary section of the New York Times is one of my favorite parts of the newspaper. Most listed have died recently, but the paper also reaches back in history to highlight people who died long ago and were underappreciated or unacknowledged at the time of their passing. Recently, the Times afforded such coverage to Harry “Bucky” Lew of Lowell, Massachusetts, who is credited with being the first Black professional basketball player in the United States. Many of us are aware of this history, especially after local author Chris Boucher (whose mentioned in the Times article) published his Harry “Bucky” Lew: A Biography of Basketball’s First Black Professional earlier this year. Now, thanks to the wide reach of the Times, more people, especially basketball fans and players, will know of this accomplishment.

Podcast: James Marriott on the End of Reading – I watched this on a YouTube channel called “Persuasion” but it’s also a podcast called “The Good Fight.” The presenter is Yascha Mounk, a German-American political scientist teaching at Johns Hopkins University. This episode was an interview of James Marriott, who is a columnist with the London Times newspaper, but the focus was his new book, The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society. Marriott argues that a “reading revolution” in the late 18th century propelled Europe and what became the United States into the Enlightenment and mass democracy. He explained that the maturation of the printing press meant more books were available; that the increasingly complex modern state and economies required literate bureaucrats and merchants; and that the rise of Protestantism, a religion the emphasized the written word, were all factors in this revolution. Marriott further argues that the decline in reading today is a factor in the erosion of democracy in the US and Europe. The host pushed back on this thesis, suggesting that literacy had arose because of economic advances rather than the other way around. I tend to fall on the Marriott side of this argument mostly because of my own experience. I enjoy reading but often find it easier to sit in front of a video screen and consume whatever comes up rather than expend the effort needed to read something complicated. There’s a place for both, but one shouldn’t crowd out the other.

Celebrating UMass Lowell Library

Celebrating UMass Lowell Library

By Louise Peloquin

From 4 to 6 PM on October 20th, the UMass Lowell Library and Alumni Relations held an open house and gathering at the O’Leary on 61 Wilder Street.

At 4:30, Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Julie Nash spoke to the 200-odd guests in attendance. She pointed out that the October 20th open house was “years germinating as a dream” in her mind given that the library was “the hub of the university” which, thanks to its outstanding team and student staff, “make everything possible and find a solution when you think there’s no solution.”

The Senior Vice Provost then thanked the Dean of the University Library Galadriel Chilton for her “leadership and persistence.”

Dean Chilton took the floor and thanked everyone for attending. Among her many colleagues, she especially thanked “the students and staff whose vision and work made this program possible such as…Tony Sampas, Sara Marks and Sarah Manchester who served on the event planning team.”

The Dean then specified that her priorities are: “the staff to champion learning; the collections; the library space” and ensuring that the library remain “a dynamic social organization.”

The UMass library employs 85 students. Several had the opportunity to speak.

Staff member Carisa Kolias introduced Connor Shaw who elaborated on his experience in the Archives and Special Collections department. Among his activities is working on the Paul Marion Papers Collection which he is undertaking with great enthusiasm.

Staff member Nikki Tatum then introduced Daranee Khoeun who classified Southeast Asian Digital Archives, Hellenic Digital Archives and more. Ms. Khoeun underlined the importance of the commitment to highlighting local history.

Staff member Steph Schweighardt introduced four students employed in Access Services – at the circulation desk and at research support for example. Speaking in turn, Maveen Faisal, Amelia Hanson; Lydia Yang and Mercy Reynoso-Germosen all agreed that their experience helped them develop their communication skills, boosted their self-confidence and heightened their satisfaction in the fact that they were “serving the local community.” All four expressed their gratitude for “the support of their supervisors.”

Monica Collier, a UMass Lowell 2026 English Studies graduate who received the Chancellor’s Medal for her academic achievement, then presented the series of stained-glass windows she has donated to the UMass Lowell O’Leary Library. In addition to being an educator and ESL teacher, she is an accomplished artist. Monica Collier explained that her four magnificent windows “are inspired by covers of books published in the early 1920’s Harlem Renaissance era when Black artists, musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, etc. … contributed so much to American culture.” The windows were on display at the gathering to the delight of the guests attending.

Dean of the University Library Galadriel Chilton gave closing remarks before inviting attendees to “mingle and enjoy the refreshments.” The UMass Lowell library, with its three locations, “has three hearts like an octopus” she said before adding that “it is also “a lighthouse to light the way” bringing clarity and guidance to all.

Exhibits and displays were open to the public on the 3rd and 4th floors of the O’Leary. We especially noticed items now part of the Franco-American Digital Archive Collection such as the first issue of “Le Journal de Lowell” which was published from 1975 to 1995.

The October 20th event demonstrated how the library continues to make a lasting impact on students, faculty, alumni and the broader community.

Ballot Question 3: moving from partisan to all-party primaries in MA by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

A basic premise of our democratic form of government is that people choose their leaders, one person exercising one vote. (This, despite legislative redistricting, where leaders try to choose their voters.) In Massachusetts, we don’t get to choose among all candidates for statewide office, whatever their parties. The parties act as gatekeepers. Even with thousands of supporters, some candidates never make it onto the primary ballot. Question 3 would enable voter access to the widest field.

Right now, party convention delegates, chosen by caucuses, cull each field of statewide candidates before voters can weigh in. Republicans and Democrats use candidate support from at least a15 percent of convention delegates to qualify for the primary ballot. A candidate who misses the threshold for state convention support by a narrow margin can only run as a write-in.

With an all-party state primary, as envisioned by Question 3, all qualifying Republicans, Democrats, third party and independent candidates would appear on the same primary ballot. Voters would choose one candidate for each office, regardless of affiliation. Candidates could, however, display on the ballot their party affiliation and, if applicable, party endorsement. In the new system, the top two vote getters for each office – regardless of party – would be the only ones listed on the November general election ballot.  Gubernatorial and lieutenant governor candidates would run as a team.

Q. 3 should incentivize greater primary participation. Voters would get a larger primary field, but only two candidates would appear in  November, when more voters go to the polls. Independent and minor party candidates would lose their current general election access and must instead survive the all-party primary. California and Washington report zero third-party or independent candidates serving in their legislatures. Increasing major party competition comes with costs and trade-offs.

Massachusetts has real institutional problems. It has earned its reputation as one of the least electorally competitive states. For most of the last eight election cycles, Massachusetts has been one of the three least competitive (often the least) states in legislative elections, that according to Ballotpedia. Q. 3 could address that unhealthy distinction.

In Massachusetts, an unenrolled voter may take either party’s ballot but is locked into that party’s nominees for every office. MA voters have a history of ticket splitting in November, voting for a governor from one party and other candidates from another party. Question 3 would allow this in the primary. Two former governors, Republican Charlie Baker and Democrat Deval Patrick are both Q. 3 supporters, in contrast to officials of their own parties.

I have knowledgeable friends I respect on both sides of Q. 3. As I have struggled with the issue, I’ve researched it, read published materials and interviewed election experts and California voters. Most California voters complained they had to choose a gubernatorial candidate from a field of 61 in last June’s all-person primary to identify the top two for November’s ballot. It took days for the results to be tabulated, but it got done in the end. (It should be noted that Massachusetts requires 10,000 signatures for gubernatorial candidates to get on the ballot while California requires under 100.)

Q. 3 critics warn that the top two vote getters could both be Republicans or both be Democrats, locking out the other (majority) party (This occurred in California twice, one in a House race in 2012 and a state Senate race in 2022, and in aWashington state treasurer race in 2016.) Given the number of races, it seems to be a rare occurrence.

If states are intended to be “laboratories of democracy,” “blue” Massachusetts presents an interesting case for all-party (or all-person) voting. Nearly two thirds are registered as unenrolled, a higher percentage than in any other state. Polls here indicate those “independents” who lean Democrat outnumber those who lean Republican about three to one. Alaska (63.2) has a nearly similar high percentage of unenrolled and nonpartisan voters, but the majority of them have traditionally favored Republicans. (Just 22.9 percent of Californians record “no party preference.”) Massachusetts’ exceptionally high unenrolled registration does not itself prove that the electorate wants less partisan government. It does, however, call attention to whether existing state elections provide meaningful choices among candidates who may share a party affiliation but differ substantially in how they would govern.

For Q. 3, a key question is how many “independents” who regularly vote for Democrats would welcome a meaningful choice between two Democrats in November instead of just an unopposed option? Cities in Massachusetts already have nonpartisan mayoral preliminary and general elections. People seem comfortable with hard-fought debates between and among individuals in the same party and are able to discern differences among them.

In a crowded open-seat field, a candidate can advance on a small plurality while ideologically similar candidates split a majority and are virtually eliminated. One example we have seen: When Jake Auchincloss first ran for Congress in 2020 from the state’s 4^th CD in a nine-person field, he won with 22.4 percent of the vote, defeating a cluster of candidates to his left. His was the minority moderate choice. Since then, as reported by the Newton Beacon, a majority of the district now gives him a 75 percent job approval and 67 percent favorability rating. Under Q3, he might have lost his first race.

Supporters of Q. 3 assert that the all-party primary will reduce polarization at both ends of the political spectrum because candidates will have to appeal to a broader electorate. (This was part of Charlie Baker’s endorsement.) While this might seem logical, studies of voting records in both California and Washington state done in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2024 show only modest reduction in polarization, and findings are inconsistent, making claims like Baker’s overstated.

Opponents of Question 3 warn that an all-party primary could give wealthy candidates an advantage, particularly when large fields make it expensive to stand out and differentiate themselves. Wealthy candidates could self-finance themselves into top slots is a legitimate concern, although hardly a problem unique to the proposed system. Clearly there’s already obscenely too much money everywhere in politics today, made worse by Citizens United and its progeny. It’s a preexisting widespread problem that must be addressed irrespective of this ballot question.

Importantly, personal wealth doesn’t automatically translate into electoral success. Josh Kraft (son of Bob) spent $5.5 million of his own money, compared to Mayor Michelle Wu’s $1.8 from all sources. Kraft won just 23 percent of the vote.  Money means little if you’re not a strong candidate with a clearcut message and good organization. We see gross expenditure of personal wealth – $16 million so far – in Republican Mike Minogue’s gubernatorial campaign to defeat Maura Healey. Several independent polls show him behind by 20 percentage points or more. (Suffolk/Globe, UMA/Amherst, MassINC. UNH poll shows a 16-point spread

Opponents also warn of gamesmanship, like one party putting up candidates in the opposing party to splinter the vote. That exists in the current system. We’ve seen that in traditional party primaries in South Carolina , Iowa and Georgia, where partisans on one side crossed to the other party primary to support candidates who would be more beatable in the general. In 2022 in Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro worked to boost election denier Doug Mastriano in the GOP primary, figuring the Trump supporter would be more beatable that November.

Name confusion is another trick warned about. How often were candidates named Kennedy put up because they share a name with a Massachusetts political dynasty? In 1954, one John F. Kennedy became state treasurer because he shared a name with the then-U.S. Senator. Political candidates have long gamed the system.

Finally, I was uneasy about Q. 3’s provision that, if two candidates tied for the second place on the November ballot, the Commonwealth’s Secretary would choose the winner of the second slot “by lot.” Legally, that could happen in New Hampshire or Connecticut but not in Massachusetts. If passed, the legislature should amend the law by requiring a run-off.

Eight-term Republican Oklahoma Congressman Mickey Edwards (now an independent) has been pushing for a Q.3 type primary for years. A former Harvard and Princeton professor and the author of The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans. He calls it an all-person rather than an all-party primary. “In a democracy,” he says, “all have equal rights to participate in every step of the election process. There is no requirement to join a club.”

Former chairman of the Mass. Democratic Party and of the Democratic National Committee, progressive Steve Grossman has spent a lifetime trying to increase political participation.  He sees the all-party primary as a way to bring attract first-time candidates, increase minority voting and convince young people that they can make a difference.  A big- D Democrat, his primary goal is small-d democracy and sees Q. 3 as a tool to enhance that.

If adopted, the parties would still be able to hold conventions, do candidate recruitment, development, training and support.(Question 3 lacks language on who and how candidates get endorsed.) They just couldn’t have the final word on whom we get to choose on the ballot.

Are there imperfections and uncertainties in the Q.3 proposal? Yes, but remember, this ballot question is an initiative petition, not a constitutional amendment. It doesn’t go into effect until 2028, and the legislature has more than a year to amend it.  They could even emulate Alaska’s all-person primary producing top four vote-getters followed by ranked choice voting (RCV) in the general election, which has its own appeal.  (Note: Massachusetts rejected a 2020 RCV initiative resulting from a muddled and ineffective voter education campaign.)

Arguably, an all-party primary asks more of voters, possibly including a greater effort to educate themselves about candidates’ policies, experience and character. But, if it does lead to a more open democratic process, that effort will have been well expended.  My wrestling with the issue leads me to a Yes on Question 3.