The candy store on a Navy ship is called the “geedunk.” Nobody knows why. Old salts will tell you that the origin of the word goes back to when American ships were posted to the far reaches of the world, and a host of foreign words gradually crept into a sailor’s vocabulary. Some say that “geedunk” is a pidgin Chinese expression, a corruption of “gee dung,” meaning “a little something,” or “cheap goods;” others say it is possibly onomatopoeic, imitating the sound of a vending machine dispensing a soda or a snack – “gee-dunk!
Back in the day, one might have needed both a dictionary and an atlas to decipher the speech of a well-traveled sailor as he used slang such as “skivvies” (underwear – Scotland), “chow” (China - food), “Ciao” (Italy – hello or goodbye), “aloha” (Hawaii – hello or goodbye), “boondocks” (Tagalog/Philippines – a remote place), “gung-ho” (China – dedicated), “kaput” (Germany – broken, finished), “hooch” (Vietnam – temporary house), “paisan” (Italy – running mate or friend), “sayonara” (Japan – goodbye), and “beaucoup” (France – a lot). While the former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, might have famously said, “The United States Navy has the cleanest bodies and the dirtiest minds – or is it mouths? – in the world,” I respectfully disagree. We were squeaky clean, when the ship’s evaporators made enough water for us to shower regularly, but nobody really respected a shipmate who could only express himself with a gratuitous stream of blasphemy and curse words.
To a sailor, the geedunk was the name of both the snack and the snack bar/store aboard a ship or a shore installation, providing candy, soft drinks, ice cream, small personal articles, as well as items such as watches, radios, and jewelry for the folks at home. The merchandise available depended entirely upon the imagination of the SUPPO (Supply Officer) who was responsible for its operation. I’ve been on ships where the geedunk offered only limited food choices, and I’ve been on others where you could purchase authentic, high dollar Rolex watches, Gucci handbags, and Chanel #5.
I remember an incident outside the geedunk on my first ship that directly led to me going to college and becoming an officer. We had been overseas in the Mediterranean for about two years, and I was starved for news from the States. I noticed a very expensive (for me) single-sideband, short wave radio for sale in the store window. I started saving my money and, lucky for me, no one bought the radio until I had finally saved enough to buy it. Back in those days, we got paid in cash, often in two-dollar bills, every two weeks on the mess deck. That pay day, I was standing patiently in a long line of other sailors, with my money in my hand, and a newly reported officer, fresh out of college, jumped to the head of the line and bought my radio. I just stood there, too shocked to show it, but too smart to say anything, and made two resolutions: I was going to become an officer, no matter how long it took; and I would never jump to the head of any queue even if I made admiral.
Have you ever noticed how a simple question can trigger an avalanche of memories? For example, just last week, one of my granddaughters asked me if there was any saltwater in saltwater taffy? When I was in the Armed Forces police in New York City, back in the early 1960s, my beat extended all the way out to Coney Island, and we often had to go out to the amusement park to round up sailors who had gotten themselves into trouble. I didn’t mind the trip, because I loved saltwater taffy, and the boardwalk there was an excellent place to buy it.
For your information, there is no saltwater in saltwater taffy; it’s just a marketing ploy, but it works on me. When I hear the term, I can taste it; I can remember the seagulls eating out of my hand; I can smell the briny waves washing up against the old pier jutting out into the cold Atlantic where the live, diving horse once entertained the crowds several times a day; I can hear the screams of the wannabe daredevils tempting fate standing up on the roller coaster as it approached the loop de loop; and I still wonder if the printed fortune that the mechanical swami at the penny arcade spit out for a quarter will eventually come true.
I always preferred the saltwater taffy for sale on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey; although the city was more famous for casinos, Miss America, and Carl McIntire, the popular radio evangelist who famously took on the Federal Communication Commission back in the 1960s over the Fairness Doctrine (Which required radio and television broadcast license holders to present diverse viewpoints on controversial subjects). Losing his legal arguments, he was one of the first to take his broadcasts offshore, broadcasting all over America from a so-called “pirate” ship. Such “outlaw” broadcasts and programming were common in Europe in the 1960s, and I often listened once I finally got my own shortwave radio.
When I was on a ship out of Boston, a shipmate invited me to a taffy pull one weekend up in Maine. As it turned out, he was more interested in me meeting his sister. She was a fine, lovely girl, but not my type. Thinking of taffy does trigger many candy-coated memories, however. For example, my earliest memory that I’m sure of dates to 1945 when I was four and my daddy returned home from several years overseas in World War II. As a present, he brought me a box of Almond Joy chocolate bars. Full of coconut, they were the strangest, most exotic thing that I’d ever tried to eat. I ate them, though, because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Actually, my memory might go back earlier than that. I can remember homing pigeons cooing in the rafters of the rental house we lived in. I asked my mama about it before she died, and she said I was three.
When I was eleven or twelve years old, my daddy, who I never particularly got along with, was running this little two pump gas station just north of Lumberton on Highway 11, and he would often leave me in charge. In addition to oil and some auto supplies, he had a few candy bars and “nabs” on sale in jars on the counter. He would always threaten me with dire consequences if I ate any of either one while he was gone. Of course, I did. It got so bad that he would count the candy bars and cookies before he left and then inventory them when he got back. I would shuffle the stock, but he would still catch me. I guess I was a bad child, but I was hungry, and I looked on it as my pay.
When my own kids were growing up, I probably bought them too much candy. I always tried to get along with my mother-in-law who was a very nice lady, but we had our differences. One Christmas, I was in Alexandria, Egypt, and I sent a nice Christmas package to my wife and boy who was just a toddler. Included, for him, was a tin of hard, wrapped Egyptian candy. When I got home several months later, my wife told me that her mother had summarily dumped my candy into the trash as potentially unsanitary. All those nights at sea, I had been imagining how my boy was enjoying that candy, so it was a disappointment.
Although I only have anecdotal evidence, I’m not too sure about removing the fluoride from our drinking water. I just know that I drank non-fluorided well water until I left home at 17, with a mouthful of cavities. The Navy then fixed my teeth, and I’ve been drinking fluorided water ever since with hardly any cavities, and that includes sampling candy all over the world. It seems like a no brainer to me.
One of the first things I used to do in a new port was to scope out the candy stores. I suppose that would seem “lame” to some people, but not being a drinker, smoker, or a carouser, it gave me something to do, a reason to get off the ship. My favorite candy store in San Francisco was “See’s,” one of a chain of stores located primarily up and down the west coast, although I do remember one being in Greenwich Village. The neat thing about the San Francisco store was that it was in North Beach, just across the street from the beat poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s, (“How do you like your blue-eyed boy, Mr. Death?) City Lights Bookstore, a few blocks from a Christian Science Reading Room. I used to love getting my bag of jellybeans, stopping in City Lights to pick up a copy of “On the Road,” or “Howl,” and to fantasize about meeting Jack Kerouac or Alan Ginsburg or some other of the “Beats” there. Then, I would wander on down to the reading room to ponder the ideas of Mary Baker Eddy, especially her position that disease and sin are mental and spiritual errors, and not physical realities. I didn’t agree with her but, high on jellybeans, it was food for thought.
While I do love taffy, I never bought into that aphorism, “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” Although “candy bar” sounds like the name of an exotic dancer, it is interesting to note that many of the vintage, retro candy bar brands that I drooled over in geedunk windows are still available. Below are three of my favorites. Of course, the most popular candy bar today is Snickers with over 380 million sold annually.
How about the Charleston Chew (1925) which was named after the “Charleston,” the most popular dance craze of the jazz age and the roaring twenties? Chocolate, with flavored nougat, it was invented by a former stage actor and tastes a lot like taffy. Many fans like to freeze the bar and then break it into bite-sized pieces. You can easily find it in dollar stores and online.
And then there’s NECCO WAFERS (1847): These thin, disc-shaped chalky candies are made by the New England Confectionary Company (NECC)) in Boston on America’s first candy making machine. Developed by a pharmacist who was trying to streamline the process of making throat lozenges, these candies were carried in their rations by both Civil War and World War II soldiers. Amelia Earhart, the famous aviatrix who disappeared at sea on an around the world flight attempt, carried them in her provisions.
Finally, there’s Baby Ruth (1921): There are two schools of thought about how this iconic, chocolate, caramel, nougat, and peanut candy bar got its name. Some say it is named after the baseball legend, Babe Ruth. Others insist it was named after President Grover Cleveland’s daughter, Ruth. Who knows? In any event, there is some precedent for naming a candy bar after a baseball player. Many years later, while Reggie Jackson was playing for the Baltimore Orioles, after he left Oakland, he was quoted as saying: “If I was playing in New York, they would name a candy bar after me.” Sure enough, he was soon traded and Standard Brands, the makers of Baby Ruth, launched the short-lived “Reggie Bar,” whose claim to fame was that Yankee fans threw it on the field whenever he hit one of his many homeruns.
It is curious that I have so many memories about candy while I can’t remember what I did yesterday. What is the attraction? I guess it makes us feel good -fast, a sugar “high.” It plays on our evolutionary programming – sweet foods were rare and helped our ancestors survive; it connects us to happy emotions; and it’s fun for the senses – its taste, texture, color, and smell.
There are other deep, speculative questions that need to be answered about the pervasive attraction of candy such as:
- Do jaw breakers really break jaws?
- Is a “balanced diet” candy in both hands?
- Is it true that love never fades, but chocolate is forever?
- And do candy kisses wrapped in paper mean more to you than any of mine?
I honestly don’t know, but I will leave those questions up to the philosophers among us.
Light a candle for me.
