Ray Robinson, Editor/Publisher
From the December 14, 1994 edition of The New Castle Record
We were reminiscing about the old days in our office one afternoon before Christmas. Having received our yearly order of fresh oranges, from one of the school fund raising projects, the subject of oranges in the toe of a Santa sock arose.
Back in the Forties, when I anticipated Samta’s visit, fresh fruit just wasn’t available as it is today. Perhaps that was one of the reasons that we looked forward to fruit as a gift.
Also, I was telling the younger people here at the paper about not being able to find stick candy anymore. Peppermint and wintergreen was pure-spun sugar-coated goodness.
Then I went over the edge and telling these same youngsters about cutting a larger hole in the orange and putting a piece f stick candy in the opening. The sweetest sugar orange juice you ever tasted would flow from the orange through the candy stick as you squeezed.
They didn’t believe a word of it. Thought the old codger had finally lost it or at least was just plain lying or making up an entertaining story. “Not a whit of truth in that one,” they chortled.
I searched diligently for stick candy, checked the big stores, drug stores, and even a few country stores but no stick candy to be found. The Saturday before Christmas we had occasion to be at the Farmhouse Restaurant in Christiansburg and there’s a whole pitcher full of peppermint stick candy, placed near the checkout counter, so that the diners can have an “after dinner mint” or “stick” in this case. I felt downright guilty when I gathered more than a few sticks to bring back to confront the non-believers on the next workday.
Showing up at the office with a handful of honest to goodness stick candy and fresh oranges, the ladies in the office knew that there was some serious orange squeezing and juice sucking in store.
They were suitably impressed and also more than a bit sticky from the sugar and juice that ran down their arms and dripped off. Even admitted except for the messiness it wasn’t a bad idea.
One of the true joys of being a senior is telling a supposedly tall yarn and then proving that it was all true. However, I haven’t got up the nerve to tell them about” RC Colas and Moon Pies,” and “salted peanuts in a Coke.” That would probably just get them in non-believing mood again.
I went through the whole holiday season with an amused look and never did tell anyone why. I was just enjoying a long-ago memory, and in my memory, the juice dripped off my elbows also.
Note: Ray and his wife, Jeanne, owned the Salem Times Register from 1965 to 2001. They also owned the New Castle Record, The Fincastle Herald and The Vinton Messenger, until 2001. His newspapers won over 200 state awards while he was at the helm.
-Prepared by Shelly Koon
