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Epicurean Kentuckian: Candy Corn at OKCC 2011-10-16 - 2339 Campbellsville Road, Columbia, KY - Photo by Ed Waggener. Betty O is the official herald of Halloween, we think. The great season is really officially here for when she puts the treats on the counter at OK Country Cooking, just as the jelly beans, in the spring there, means to watch for the Easter Bunny. It's a bit like it used to be, when Nathan Hale or Jesse Loy put out the new toy display at Ben Franklin for our kids, or for my generation, when Ed Vance and Ed Williams of Ed's Kentucky Auto first put their toy display in the window at 134 Public Square back in the 50s. For kids of the 40s, candy corn will always elicit memories of one of Columbia's greatest stores: Nell's Variety Store, in the Southwest Corner of the Square. That emporium had everything: Sewing materials, notions (whatever that is), Comet airplane kits, Red Ryder BB guns, and up front, the most wonderful 'town moms' ever to smile from behind a candy counter, filled with loose caramels, chocolate covered peanuts, circus peanuts, coconut haystacks, orange flavored jelly slices, gum drops, licorice, gum drops, and delectables I can't even begin to remember. My favorite was licorice, and then as now, I didn't mean to be trouble, but the clerks wouldn't pick out just licorice from the assorted gum drops, even when I was at my cutest. My second favorite was candy corn. I don't remember all their names - there was Mrs. Downs and the owner, Irene Nell - two of the great Town Square surrogate mothers, who raised us and gave our moms well-deserved after school respites. I guess if I had a magic wand to bring back such one place on the Square of the Fifties, it would be Nell's Variety Store. Betty Ollestad's fall ritual at OKCC is, in a way, providing a vicarious revisit of that time. -ED WAGGENER Permalink | Comments?

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