The Taste of Childhood

Father’s Day is coming. My father has been gone for many years now but he has been on my mind a lot. And today my sister bought a roll of Butter Rum Lifesavers and offered me one. They were my daddy’s favorite and I haven’t had one for decades. That first punch of flavor was the taste of my childhood. It reminded me of several happy moments spent with my dad.

Butter Rum was the taste of long car rides and getting “lost” on roads my father had driven all his life. It was deer hunting those same back roads from the car—because dad learned long ago that the more space between the car and the deer—the farther you had to pack it out. I don’t ever remember shooting anything other than tin cans, I believe now those adventures were another excuse for a long drive.

Butter Rum is also the taste of playing in the ice-cold ocean at the Oregon Coast, and of late nights wandering out to get a drink of water and finding my father laying on the living room floor—reading.

As a young teenager, Butter Rum became the taste of long transpacific flights to New Guinea and Singapore when we moved overseas.

There are other childhood foods and treats that remind me of other people and times, but one of the sweetest, memory inducing tastes is Butter Rum Lifesavers. I miss you daddy.