Walnettos 101 ...

Jonelle 1953

Hands clasped, fingers laced, we pushed through crowded high school corridors, my ruffled crinoline petticoats peeked from beneath a swirly poodle skirt. I was wearing his football jacket proudly. Shoulder seams touching my elbows. Sleeve cuffs almost reaching my knees. His senior ring hung from a silk scarf around my neck. Saddle oxfords and bobby sox completed the "in" look for 1953.

It was the year of Walnettos, young love and strategic seating plans.

Walnettos were caramel candies. Seating arrangements were something a bit more complex ... something created by and for couples going steady.

Coupledom, back then, began in ninth grade Sometimes sooner. Going steady meant sitting next to each other at ball games, walking home from church together, holding hands in school halls. Steadies often married before ink dried on their high school diplomas. My father hoped I'd have better sense when my turn came. (I didn't.)

My boyfriend and I chose all the same classes. Except for workshop and home economics we were rarely separated.

In English, the plan was for him to sit directly behind me in order to have a better view of my notes, without which he could not pass the course ... and easier access to my Walnetto supply, without which neither of us could survive the day.

"Define Syntatic Analysis," Ms. Davis instructed from the front of the room, and I felt an immediate tug on my ponytail. I handed back a Walnetto to steady his nerves.

A sharp number 2 yellow pencil flowed effortlessly across my paper.

Syntatic analysis is the analyzing of a text to
determine its grammatical structure.

I held my paper upright, making it possible for him to look over my shoulder and copy words he, personally, had no desire to understand.

We made straight A's in English.

In World History our seating plan had me sitting gratefully behind my steady.

"During the French Revolution," Mr. Jones paced back and forth in front of the blackboard, "What year did the war of Austrian Succession cause the French Monarchy to fall heavily into debt?"

My shaky fingers unwrapped another Walnetto as I waited anxiously for the correct answer to appear on the desk ahead of me. And there it came. Right on cue. 1740.

We made straight A's in World History.

In Geometry we sat across the aisle from each other and exchanged worried looks as we waited for the worst to happen. We ate so many Walnettos in that class we often borrowed from friends three aisles over.

Rectangular Prism = ABC
Irregular Prism = bh
Cylindar = Bh=Pir2h

Merciful God!

Psst! Please, somebody, anybody, pass me another piece of candy!

My sweetheart was lucky to make B's in Geometry.

I made whatever he did.

Finally, dangling tassels were transferred from one side of our mortarboards to the other, and, suddenly, just-like-that, ill prepared and much too young, we began the next phase of life together.

A few short years later, tears obscured the fork in the road as, sadly. I stumbled one direction, and he went another.

The old two-story schoolhouse has long since been torn down, and a bigger finer building stands at the edge of town. Noisy hallways vibrate with familiar sounds of youth, but not one student wears ruffled crinoline petticoats and not one student has ever heard of Walnettos.

Yesterday, the UPS man left a package at my door.

Walnettos still exist in far away Vermont.

25.00 for a two-pound bag.

Worth every penny.