Chocolate’s Fine, But His New Store Is Home Sweet Home

Remember the 1-cent wax Coca-Cola bottles filled with pop? You bit off the waxy top and the teaspoon of pop squirted into your mouth? The best part was the tasteless wad of wax you could chew on until your mother made you spit it out.

Or how about the foot-long, flat strips of taffy in pastel colors? Or Bags o’ Gold filled with nuggets of gum?

“This is the stuff I remember in elementary school buying at the little market down the street for pennies,” says Charlie Taranto. His eyes gleam with good memories as they dart from the golf ball-sized jawbreakers to the Pez and Pixie sticks in his new candy store, Fuzziwig’s.

Charlie saw a promotional video on Fuzziwig’s a year ago and had to have his own store and stock of nostalgic candy. He already was into candy. He runs the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory at Post Falls’ Factory Outlets.

But chocolate is classy and costly. Fuzziwig’s is fun and inexpensive. For Charlie, it was a new and better toy.

“I love the chocolate factory, but I can get wacky and crazy here,” he says, opening his arms wide inside the Factory Outlets’ newest store.

Like a little kid, Charlie dashes to the back of the store where the automated Professor Fuzziwig sits in the fuzzimobile candy creator pulling levers with each hand.

The professor is a blend of “Back to the Future’s” Emmett Brown and Santa Claus. Above his head, metal claws travel along a conveyor belt and drop fake fruit into a tube that carries it to a bathtub. Three oversized oxfords mechanically stomp the fruit into juice that’s piped to colorful vials behind the professor.

Tubes across the ceiling carry sugar to the vials and finished candy to bins all over the store. Charlie says shy munchkins who hide behind the walls sort everything.

The automation is dazzling, but Charlie’s favorite is the background music that includes themes to Mighty Mouse, Underdog, and Huckleberry Hound, the Dick Van Dyke Show, Father Knows Best and Wagon Train - the baby-boomer collection.

“As soon as I hear them, I’m right back in childhood,” he says. “I want everyone to feel that happy when they’re here.”

Fuzziwig’s grand opening is Saturday.

Guardian angels

Cataldo’s Ruth Hussa had a tough time during the ice storm. She’s 80 and lives alone. Like everyone else, she lost her power, telephone service and heat. Her car slid into a ditch when she went out for help and she crawled out with help from her cane.

But Ruth’s tough and laughs about it all now. Her main disappointment was missing the Sixth Street Melodrama’s production of “Godspell,” and even that turned out all right. The play’s director called to tell her they videotaped it for her.

Red ribbons

AIDS is still one of those topics discussed in low tones in the Panhandle. But Hayden’s Huckleberry ‘Holesalers Nursery didn’t hesitate to show its sympathy for victims. It donated a fir tree to the North Idaho AIDS Coalition to commemorate World AIDS Day today.

The tree is in front of the North Idaho Cancer Center. Tie a red ribbon on it and show your support for AIDS research.

Dining deal

Simple truth: The student chefs at North Idaho College’s Emery’s cook terrific chicken fettuccine, wait on customers hand and foot and love their work. I booked a high school awards banquet there - the prices are great - and no one had heard of it. The program’s anonymity won’t last long. It’s too good.

“Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, 83814. Call 765-7128.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo