When I was around 8, I acquired my own roll of Life Savers. My father had carried them around as long as I could remember. It wasn’t a daily ritual or anything regular like that; I just recall that now and then, often when it was most needed, he’d reach into his left front pants pocket, pull out the roll of navy blue Pep-o-Mints, and extract one for me. They were white. Each one usually cracked into two almost perfect semi-circles while I sucked it. The flavor made my mouth feel cool.

I remember Wint-o-Green, too, but I think that was from a later time. That memory includes taking them into a closet and chewing them mouth open in an attempt to see the wintergreen flash (a phenomenon similar to and as elusive as the green flash the sun makes when it sets into the ocean).

And then there was the kid-popular 5-Flavor pack. Those Life Savers were shinier than the mint flavors, more sugary in taste. I endured the limes to get to the cherries.

When I was old enough to choose how to spend my nickel, I bought a roll of 5-Flavor Life Savers. I felt rather grown up.

But not as grown as I would feel, soon. Later that year we moved to California, where I continued to purchase as much sugar per penny as possible, for awhile. I bought Life Savers and sometimes I switched to those candy dots on paper, or the amazing candy-on-elastic necklaces, that one could eat as one wore them (while also decorating one’s neck with the little stripes of color from the yet-uneaten but saliva-damped candies that remained on the elastic).

Something happened to me at around 10. I no longer compared colored candies to decide how to spend my money. I wandered into a See’s store and experienced fine chocolate. I began to spend my allowance more carefully, purchasing just a bit of candy but excellent stuff.

It was one of the first indications I experienced, that I was growing up.