We called him Ollie, although we knew his real name was Leon.
In 1956, this grumpy, bent old man ran a local pharmacy, the only store we could reach without crossing a street.
At five years old, we needed elders to escort us through the heavy traffic cris-crossing that section of South Paterson. With Ollie’s store at the end of the block, we could come and go as we pleased, purchasing candy without the perpetual warnings of ruining our teeth.
Ollie, with his white hair and eyebrows, seemed ancient to us as we clattered into his store every weekday after school and numerous times on Saturdays. He always grunted to the ring of the bell that hung above his door announcing customers. He always struggled out from the back, removing the apron he always wore while preparing prescriptions. His hopeful expression soured when he saw us rather than the legions of local seniors who flocked to him for his remedies. He perpetually smelled of medicine, a scent almost as sour as his moods.
His store had a serious air, shelves lined dark-labeled treatments for every ill, although our interest was the thin display of candy installed in front of the service counter. Ollie tolerated us and our flood of nickels. But he would put up with no lollygagging. He shooed us away if we did not immediately know which candy we wanted, caring little for the nickel transaction lost.
His choice was so limited we had little trouble memorizing his stock. Kit Kat and Reese’s did not exist then. But he would not have endured such newfangled items, sticking to the tried and true products he had carried since opening the store early in the century: Charms hard candy, Wrigley’s chewing gum, chocolate covered caramel candies called Heath Bars, and an assortment of other such items.
We kept hoping to come in one day to find even one of the newer candies we often saw advertised on TV. We even hummed some of the familiar jingles to Good ‘N Plenty or Mounds. Yet in our rush to deposit our nickels into the old man’s wrinkled palm and to grab from the limited stock, we noticed no new items displayed.
Then, one day I saw an advertisement for Chunky chocolate bar – an item that came with a choice of raisins or raisins and nuts, wrapped in silver with red and black lettering. In this commercial, the actor entered a store not much different from Ollie’s, tapped sharply on the counter and demanded to purchase a Chunky bar from a clerk not much different from Ollie.
The commercial impressed upon my still malleable mind that to get the fancier products from stores like Ollie’s, customers had to demand them in the same way the actor had.
My friends believed I was insane when I informed them of my plan and they staggered with me down the whole block to make certain I actually fulfilled my lunatic endeavor. They nudged me through the front door with giggles and grimaces and stood outside staring through the dusty glass as the bell announced my arrival.
In no moment in my early life did I display such boldness as I did when I edged up to the counter and rapped my knuckles on the warm surface and demanded my Chunky.
The old man’s white brows jerked up, as if yanking his mouth into the awful expression he displayed. His eyes grew furious with outrage too acute at that moment to immediately order me out. He sputtered for a long time before the words exploded upon me, and I fell, nickel still clutched in my own moist palm.
I remained humbled in subsequent visits, hovering behind others when making purchases. When enough years passed to allow us to cross the street to the more legitimate candy store on the far side, I was relieved.
I never forgot that moment or Ollie’s reaction. His outrage became tattooed to each bar of candy I later acquired, regardless of the institution from which I made the purchase. Over time, the sting of my humiliation faded and grew into a strange affection for the plan and his dark store. So when I saw the "out of business" sign some years later, an overwhelming hurt came over me for chocolate, but it was an urge no other place than Ollie’s could resolve. It is an urge that now nearly 50 years after that bold request for Chunky I still feel. – Al Sullivan (The author is a senior staff writer for The Hudson Reporter.)