My mind races to my childhood, and my grandmother’s farm. During the summer, I would often help with chores. As a reward she would make dinner, or at least offer a treat. A glass canister shaped like an oversized perfume bottle contained my favorite. The name Orange Slices implies these sugar-covered candies shaped like an orange segment had some redeeming characteristics to them.
“You realize there are no natural ingredients in those things,” a classmate pointed out as we sampled various foods, including my beloved Orange Slices.
Like a child that knew in the back of his mind that Santa didn’t exist, I was probably aware that these fixtures of my youth were a creation of chemicals melded together. Like a child, I was not ready to believe it.