There is a "fruit stand" up the street from where I live that has been there since before I can remember.  It's probably 6 or so blocks up...on the corner of two main streets.  It's more than just a stand...more like a small cement building.  It closes in the winter and opens in the warm months when the surrounding orchards are fruitful again.  It's always been there...always been a fundamental part of my growing up.  As children my friends and I would ride our bikes up the street, me with my flower basket and tassels hanging out of my handlebars...my friends, all with similar looking bikes...we'd pump our way up the street with our pockets full of change and purchase what then really WAS penny candy.  I still can't taste a swedish fish without remembering the good old days.  We'd buy our penny candies and then load up our baskets and head back home.  It was a short bike ride...but it was made several times a week during the summers.

It's funny how little things like that stay with you.  I don't have one particular memory that stands out...but I remember the days of riding up to purchase our penny candies and then biking back.  The couple who owned it back then were older...at least I considered them old by my young standards, and I'm they've probably passed away by now...but the fruit stand remains in the same family.  I haven't been in there in many years...I wonder if it's still the same inside.  Or if, as with everything else these days, it's been modernized...perhaps I will drive up there in the next few days and check for myself...and see if it still holds the memories within it's walls...of children laughing and ordering candy.  I wonder if other children are creating the same memories.  I never see bicycles parked outside anymore....so I'm banking on not.  Too many people worry about abductions, etc. to allow their kids to bike off to two main streets alone to buy open candy from strangers.

It's too bad it's changed...those are great memories.  Very great indeed.