This was a common refrain during the Great Depression. Yes, we did get three meals a day, but a child craves more. I have always had a sweet tooth. Sugary treats were seldom included on Mother's shopping list.

Occasionally, but not very often, if I was lucky enough to go in to the grocery store with Mother, she would let me pick out one, mind you, one cookie from the clear cellophane covered big box of cookies there. I would first study the selection in the box through the lid. Those delicious marshmallow-topped cookies came in several colors, one for each flavor. I liked them all. Choosing one was not easy. I would cup it in my hands as I walked out to our old Essex car. I ate it in small snippets, being sure it was all gone with no crumbs remaining before Mother drove into our tenant farm driveway.

That is one memory. Another one is a slice of bread with butter and sugar on it. Delicious.

My eyes would follow the knife as Mother spread the butter, real butter because we had a cow, on the slice of bread. She would sprinkle it lightly with sugar, then place it in my eager hands. I savored each bite. Sugar was expensive, ten cents a pound I believe. If you didn't have the ten cents, that was expensive.

Another treat was our morning breakfast. No corn flakes or Wheaties for us. Mother and Dad would have fried eggs, toast and coffee for breakfast. My brothers and I each had a bowl of bread and milk. Yes, a little sugar was sprinkled on it, too. I haven't eaten bread and milk since I was a child. We would have coffee as well. The difference between ours and our parent's coffee was the amount of milk in it. Ours was about half and half. I don't remember any cocoa during my early years, just coffee with lots of milk.

Mother couldn't make a decent cake for sour apples. This was before the age of cake mixes. She didn't have a cookbook. She had no neighbor friends to share recipes with. There was only one other house within a mile of our place. That one belonged to John Carter, the farmer Dad worked for. His wife was mentally ill and barely friendly. Mother did the best she could. So what if she couldn't bake a cake. Mother made fantastic biscuits and cornbread. But, once in a while, if she had the ingredients and the time, she would stir up a batch of sugar cookies. I can still see them in my mind's eye. Bigger than my tiny hands, soft and fragrant. My, they were good. I can still smell them baking in our old cookstove's oven.

That sums up my childhood sweet treats: a marshmallow topped store-bought cookie, a slice of bread and butter with sugar on it, bread and milk in the morning and the occasional sugar cookie. If there is some grey in your hair, perhaps you remember treats that aren't savored anymore. McDonalds and Krispy Kreme were far in the future.