Sitting in the dining hall of the Satellite we have access to retrieving artifacts from the 80s. Seeing that this Satellite has decided to stall in the 80s I figured just for fun I would sent one of our crew on the hunt for a childhood favorite treat of mine…Lowneys ChocoLoto Bars! Lock in coordinates to 1982 computer…Initiate!
Begin Transmission: 05/18/2016
In 1982, not to sound like an old curmudgeon, but money went a long way on trips to the corner store. If you were fortunate enough to land 2 bucks you were a champ! On visits to my Grandmothers in a desolate rural town called Harcourt that may as well have been my childhood Tatooine, I managed to get the best visits to the corner stores. The town was about a 40 minute drive from the thriving metropolis that I lived in. To be clear any town you lived in, if you didn’t travel much, was always the biggest cause it was the center of your universe as was Clarenville to me..but I digress.
During numerous sleep overs at my Grandparents house I was always spoiled in the sense that I would always be given money almost any time I needed then jump on my bike and drive a very short ways to Holloway’s Grocery which was literally two doors away. I was always treated well by the lady who worked there (Shout Out to Audrey!!) and they always called you by name, which I appreciated as a kid! Being a little bit off the beaten track this store seemed to have older treasures still on the shelves in 1982 but that was a great thing for me as you would always find that one treat in there that you didn’t expect to find that in hindsight may have been sitting on their shelves from opening day. It was here I gained a great coloring book collection as dictated in a previous article. I loved that store though as I always came away with something great like a Buck Rogers coloring book or the item in question in this article..the Chocoloto Bar!
For those of you who do not remember it was a Bar with a bright green wrapper which featured a mint bar inside that one would liken in today’s world to a Laura Secord Mint Chocolate Bar but its key feature was that inside the wrapper if you peeled it carefully without destroying it you could win prizes! Inside the wrapper you could be alerted to a free giveaway like a T-Shirt..One of the very rare images of that T-Shirts thankfully still exists as per below..
The other prize was MONEY!! Well money wasnt simply placed in the bar wrapper but it was printed on the inside of the wrapper in coins. If I recall you could win 5, 10, and 25 Cents within these wrappers. This was pretty sweet as the bar its self was usually only 30 cents to purchase! You could save them up as well depending on how many bars you would buy you could come off with a good amount of money from these things depending on that appetite..I had little will power and always cashed in my money for candy and other confectionary goodness! One tragedy was he fact that I never won one of the shirts. I do remember loving the taste…the mint chocolate wasnt the norm back. In that time things like Laura Secord was something that the high rollers who lived in the big city would have but for this kid in small town Harcourt NL it was perfection.
Stop by and say hi to Audrey and the gang at Holloways Grocery one of my favorite stores ever as a kid!
Playing outside on my bike with a few kids from the area with your Drink, foil bag Hostess Potato Chips and me with my Chocoloto Bar life was all I needed it to be! So if you ever visit Harcourt and you head to Holloway’s Grocery, ask for a Chocoloto Bar..they wont have any but maybe they will remember old Hero here cleaning them out with my Grandparents coins!! Life is short gang…remember to smell the roses and hold on to the good memories!
Transmission Ended…Time to eat some Chocoloto!
The SuperHero Satellite 