That said, I stole enough glances and glimpses to know that much of the exhibition edibles are still the same: frozen ice cream waffles, cotton candy, candy apples, caramel corn, doughnut holes, giant dill pickles, homemade fudge; snow cones, hot dogs, corn dogs and hamburgers – it was all there. They even have something called “deep-fried butter.”
Sadly, I can no longer eat the ice cream waffles (lactose intolerant), scarf down the red meat (cholesterol), or munch on a candy apple (dental work). I can only gaze at them in memory and salute as I walk by, a leaky tear escaping my big, sad eyes.
I think the most important part of the CNE when I was a kid, past the carousel and the neon lights, was the thought of a candy apple – the thing for which I coveted my money so that at the end of the night, after the rides and the fireworks had made me repugnantly dizzy, I could buy one and spirit it home.
In fact, when I was a kid I used to have dreams about candy apples, their glazed red deliciousness only minorly inferior to the juicy sweetness of the apple itself – heaven on a stick – the last bits of goodness licked away slowly, the delicate nectar lingering on my salivating tongue.
I confess to a lump in my throat yesterday in fact, as I walked by the sturdy rows of crimson invitations, their glistening roundness calling out to me, “Jennnnnnnifer…Jennnnnnnifer….” But I was strong. I walked alone, head held high, and right into the booth called Gourmet Lollipops – six for $5.00 – where the owner told me he had been selling these suckers for 39 years. I asked him if he, too, had noted drastic changes in the CNE over the decades, and he nodded morosely, saying nothing.
Anyway, I am sitting here at the keyboard licking away at my blueberry confectionary – it’s quite good – and at less than a dollar a pop, thinking to myself, “Not a bad deal, after all.” But oh oh oh, what I’d give for a big fat juicy crimson drool-inducing candy apple.
