Anyone that knows me, knows that I have an addiction with shoe string licorice laces. As far back as I can remember I have. Although I had my favorite, which was green spearmint, I also never turned away black, red and purple. Unfortunately living in the States, there is no access to this delightful and delectable treat so I have to be satisified in bringing back rather large amounts of it when I return to Canada every year. I have been known to bring back several bags and most people do not get why I would do such a thing, but it is mainly a treat that I enjoyed when I was growing up.
Living in Waseca, it was not like you could actually go to the neighborhood store and buy what you want. There was only to 2 places in the Village that you could actually buy junk food and that was the Coop grocery store and other place was the Poolroom. No idea what the business was really called but a family of French immigrants owned it Their name was Gagnon. The Poolroom was a business that had several pool tables in it, a barbers chair and a nice selection of candy. It helped that it was only across the train tracks from the school, making it really handy to tend to the desire of licorice. When it was lunch hour, we were able to go wherever we wanted and most times it was to the Poolroom to get more licorice.
When I first started buying it, you could get 2 long laces for a penny. The shoestring laces hung over a bar in a cabinet and they just pulled them off, counted them up and put them in a nice brown paper bag, just like the alcohol ! So 50 cents gave you 100 hundred laces that you could Overdose on. Today, if you can find them, it will cost you over 2 bucks for perhaps 20. Not sure how many are in a bag but not nearly enough. What a high !! So good and so bad for you.
I have to admit, I was hooked on them and have been ever since. Maybe it is a good job that I cannot get them anymore except once a year. I mean, after all - one does not want to go down in history as dieing from a licorice overdose. Or do they?
