Bit-O-Grit-O-Honey

It only took Norah a few floats to get the hang of darting out to pluck candy from the asphalt in yesterday’s 4th of July parade. We’ve been parceling it out to her at a controlled pace ever since and taking a few liberties for ourselves along the way.

The Tootsie Rolls are a popular treat for all members of the Grenstead, and the Jolly Ranchers are pretty inoffensive as well…but it seems I am alone in my enjoyment of the Bit-O-Honeys. Moonshot tends to make nasty faces as I unwrap them and then gagging noises as I eat them. Her face turned to bewilderment however, when I commented, my teeth gummed together with confection, “Ya know, they’re good…but they’re just not the same without the grit in them.”

You may be making a face similar to the one my wife made, because to understand my sediment sentiment, you’ll need some history.

I started caving with my Dad when I was about five. He purchased a kid’s football helmet and outfitted it with a headlamp since no one made functional hardhats for the preschool set. He taught me to pack for safety: three independent sources of light (typically your main headlamp, a reliable flashlight, and one or two cyalume lights (glow sticks.) Also on your person should be a canteen of water, maybe a space blanket (foil hypothermia blanket,) some matches in a waterproof container (especially important is you were a carbide caver…which I wasn’t at that age,) and some snacks.

My Dad took the snack selection very seriously. The snack break on a one-day cave trip (I wasn’t allowed on the overnight trips at that age) nearly always came at the very back of the cave. You’d stop, chat with your mud-coated friends and refuel for the trip back which you knew was going to be exactly as grueling as getting there in the first place. So, Dad was looking for a snack that was compact, delivered a good sugar punch for energy, would stand up well to being squished, rolled on and possibly soaked, and had at least the illusion of some healthy benefit. And as a man who raised bees and swore by the health benefits of his tablespoon of honey per day, the mere mention of the word “honey” on the label, even if it did only promise a “bit” of the substance, was enough to make Bit-O-Honey the obvious choice for our caving snack.

We didn’t eat them any other time. They weren’t my favorite candy and Dad was a Jelly Belly man when out of the confines of the cavern. And so the Bit-O-Honey was only eaten while resting countless feet below the surface of the Earth with muddy fingers to pull the wax paper from between the little segments of the taffy bar.

Since I’d not had one since those long-ago cave trips stopped, I had never really realized until earlier this evening as I chewed on that beige candy that the sandy grit of Missouri caves had become an integral component to my nostalgia for that red-and-yellow-wrapped Bit-O-Honey.

I tried to explain this to my wife, but she just shook her head and went back to stirring her “Chicken” Tortilla Soup…no doubt lamenting what a thankless job it is to prepare a delicious meal for a man who thinks mud is a gourmet ingredient.