So many of us sheltering during Covid are finding time to delve back in time to our childhoods, to our ancestry and to our memories. I have reminisced in previous blogs and am not about to stop now; another memory triggered by a stop at our favorite cider mill in Rochester, NY.
As a young child through my teens, we would have frequent get togethers with a good family friend named Harry Suskind. He was a wonderful character and a joker in contrast to his lovely, more subdued wife and always brought me a pack of Black Jack (Licorice) gum. He presented the pack with great teasing– which hand it is in, which pocket or did he bring it to me at all–(of course he did) and it could have been in my hair or behind my ear, in my teddy bear’s ear or my comfort blanket that was always present until I thought it babyish.
We recently took a drive into the country, well it used to be rural but has been enveloped by civilization and developers) to Schutt’s Cider Mill. For decades this has been our favorite place for fresh cider, apples and their (deadly good) fry cakes. We took our sons, our grandson or friends and savored their products. It has been years since we have been there but had a yen for cider during this Covid crisis. The parking lot was jam packed but we all had masks and kept our distance.
To my surprise the display in the photo was perched next to the cashier. Hence my trek into the past and Harry Jack (as I had dubbed him) Suskind. Black Jack Gum and the other flavors have been revived. I did not buy a pack because we had already checked out and the cashiers were on to other customers but I certainly will during our next visit.
A bit of history from Wikipedia and such;
“In 1884, he (Beeham) began adding licorice flavoring and called his invention Adams’ Black Jack, the first flavored gum in the U.S. It was also the first gum to be offered in sticks. Black Jack Gum was sold well into the 1970s, when production ceased due to slow sales. It was re-introduced in 1986 and again in 2019.”