Second Post of the Day
If you are a Baby Boomer like me, you remember candy cigarettes. Shocking to think about now, right? But when I was a child, the dangers of smoking were not very well known and it was common for adults to smoke. Kids even played a form of freeze tag called "Cigarette Tag" where you called out a brand of cigarettes to protect yourself from being frozen by the tagger. Really.
Anyway, things have changed big time and I haven't seen candy cigarettes in years and years. Basically they were a stick of sugar with an orange colored tip to simulate the flame.
And yes, we did imitate grown ups with them. The photo in this meme is accurate. I've done it. (Although I've never smoked.)
Anyway, I share that so you understand the opening comment in Music City Son Cole's text below in which he makes a tongue in cheek reference to candy cigarettes and sets up our family NCAA basketball brackets.
Also, the name of our league, the Bitter Bocce Losers, is named after our 4th of July family tournament. Don't miss the video in that blog post. We may be competitive, but we have fun, too!
Nineteen of us are playing - grandparents, parents, and kiddos, and the first two rounds were this past weekend.
And he's right, the grands who know nothing about basketball and made their choices based on team mascots last year beat us all!
This year, the grands have again made some interesting choices, and several of them are climbing the leaderboard.
Cowpoke Ian is tied for second!
Surprisingly Mountain Mama Jessica and Hawkeye Todd are at the bottom. As for me, I'm tied with "This is Good" Susie at 15th. (Susie did indeed go for Grand Canyon University who went out in the first round of 64 teams.)
I still have a chance - Purdue has made it to the Sweet Sixteen and I have them tapped as the tournament champion. (Last year they came in second in the tournament. Fingers crossed.) Cambria, too, may make a sweeping comeback as she has Purdue taking it all, too.
I love our family tournaments, whether it's Fantasy Football, the Super Bowl, Bocce, or the NCAA Basketball tournament. While the games are being played, the family text chain is dinging fast and furiously as my family comments and throws zingers at each other. It's a lot of fun.
I may not know a lot about sports, but I love how sporting events bring my family together.
Boiler Up!
I remember candy cigarettes! They did taste odd, something else in there besides sugar. My granddad smoked a pipe. No cigarette smokers in my family. We are out of MM here with both men and women Illini losing and local team CSU out too. But our neighbor a few houses down could get to be the new CSU coach so we have hopes for that young family.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid my parents took me and my sister all over the SouthWest on road trips, and we went through a 'candy phase' where we got them to purchase great heaps of loot for us. Definitely one of the favorites were those candy cigarettes. I remember they crunched well, like Sweet Tarts. The phase did not last beyond one long trip.
ReplyDeleteCandy cigarettes disappeared when I was still a teenager.
They still make those cigarettes! I can get them at my local grocery store.
ReplyDelete