Brown Candy

Every Sunday, and I do mean every Sunday, my family would go to church. This included my father, mother, two sisters and I. It also included my three aunts, my uncle, grandmother, grandfather and too many cousins to count. We all attended the same church and it was like a family reunion every Sunday.

We had a little “Pryor” section at the church where we would all sit together. I admit that in my youth I wasn’t much of a fan of the pastor’s long sermons or the choir’s numerous songs. I was so young I didn’t understand much of what was going on. However, I always looked forward to going to church because of my Aunt Sofia - every Sunday she would share candy with all of her nieces and nephews.

Auntie Sofia was bit strange though; she would only bring brown candy to church. In fact, Auntie Sofia would only wear clothes that were brown too. Nobody could ever figure out why. Anyway, she would share a big brown bag of Root Beer Barrels, Root Beer Original Gourmet Pops, Root Beer Frooties, Chocolate Tootsie Pops, Brown Jelly Belly beans and more with all of us. Although it was strange to have only brown candy, it was still such a treat that none of us kids paid any attention to the color – we were just so happy and excited to have some candy in church!

Since church service was rather long, usually averaging 3 hours or more, all the brown candy kept all us children awake. Whenever someone would look like they were about to doze off, or if a group of us appeared to be getting fidgety and a bit too talkative, Auntie Sofia would send the brown candy bag down the pew again.

I remember those days growing up so fondly. Now that I’m older and a mother and aunt myself, I do the same, just like Auntie Sofia. During church I treat my nieces, nephews and son to some candy during church. It’s not all brown like my Aunt Sofia’s, but I make sure that there is always a good amount of brown candy in the bag in memory of her.