Chewing Gum


My uncle, Charlie Clinton Stephenson, lived on a farm just down the road about a half mile from where we lived. Uncle Charlie was a “trader” which means he bought products from one area and traveled to another area and sold them. This is what he did for a living. He bought and sold everything and anything. Once he acquired some bee hives and brought them to his farm. For the next several years he furnished all the family with raw honey to eat. Maybe he even sold some of the honey to people, but he gave it to us for free. He would come by and just drop off a few jars of honey with the honeycomb inside the jar. As a young boy growing up in the 1950s on our McAdoo farm, I would chew that honeycomb just like chewing gum. It was always so sweet, and much better than any chewing gum. My mother would often serve the honey at breakfast time with cereal or oatmeal or “mush”, but she would save that honeycomb for me. Now, it is June of 2020 and I probably haven’t had honeycomb since the 1950s and I’m not even sure if it can be purchased anywhere, but it does serve as a great memory.

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