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THE NARRATIVE ARC

There Was Never a Simpler Time

We lived in poverty, but candy made things sweeter

Michelle Teheux
The Narrative Arc
Published in
6 min readDec 14, 2024

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An assortment of candy
Photo by Ambitious Studio* | Rick Barrett on Unsplash

My cousin came up with a brilliant business plan: We could raise candy money by selling our old clothes and toys to the neighbors. Always eager for candy, I quickly agreed. We each gathered up an armload of stuff we didn’t want and became traveling salesgirls.

As I recall, everyone was glad to buy something from us. Our venture was a success!

I have always thought this was a happy memory until I started thinking about it today.

We lived in a town of 200

In those days, the town had only one store in town — a gas station with a big glass case full of penny candy. I thought it was called Newby’s, but when I just looked it up, I saw it was actually called the Texaco Service Station.

I never heard it called that in my life.

In the 1970s, you could get a whole paper sack full of treats there for about a quarter. I don’t remember how much candy we got on our first day of business, but I do remember it was also our last day of business. My mom put an end to our lucrative venture.

My mom was mortified

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The Narrative Arc
The Narrative Arc

Published in The Narrative Arc

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Michelle Teheux
Michelle Teheux

Written by Michelle Teheux

Lover of literature. Former newspaper editor. Fascinated by everything. Contact: michelleteheux@gmail.com. To buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/michelleteheux

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