Necco Wafers

I once participated in a “Walk for Life” at a crisis pregnancy clinic. Since I went alone  I decided I would just walk to the one mile marker (there were three, one mile, five miles or 10). Before I knew it an older man caught up with me and struck up a conversation. He regaled me with stories of his childhood growing up in rural California. He spoke with the melancholy of a simpler time that I could see he loved and missed very much. He was curious and full of questions for me and I felt he was the last of his ilk. Like my dad; he was a real gentleman. He shared many stories that day but there was one that has stayed with me.

"One day when I was a child,” he began, “I was walking a road I'd walked down every day of my life. These were dirt roads back then and I was talking to Jesus, just as easy as you and I are talking now. I was nine years old and I was eating Necco Wafers candy. Do you know what Necco Wafers are?"

"Yes," I said, "I do know Necco Wafers! My parents gave them to us on long drives. ‘Hold them on your tongues,’ they'd say, ‘and see who can keep them there the longest without biting.’ This was, of course, their way of keeping us quiet in the car.”

“Ah, yes,” my friend continued, "a good trick.”

He continued. “So, like you, I’m eating my Neccos, but I am biting them, picking them out of their delicate paper one by one and crunching them, if you please, as happy as can be, walking and talking to Jesus. All of a sudden—just that quick..." he snapped his fingers, "I felt this huge burst of love and wanted to share my candy with Jesus, so I impulsively tossed all my Neccos up in the air!

Well, almost immediately I realized how foolish that was and that I was going to have to pick them all up. That's how my parents had raised me so I knew I couldn't just leave them out there littering the road. But when I went to pick them up, they weren't there. I thought I must have hurled them farther than I thought so I walked around and around looking for them, scratching my head. All I could see was the dirt road I'd been walking on all of my life, not a single candy in sight." I guess God liked Necco Wafers too.

We walked the full 10 miles without even noticing.