How Many Licks Does It Take to Get to the Center of a Blow Pop?

I don’t care where you grew up—every Black neighborhood has a Candy Lady.

In our generation, the Candy Lady was somebody’s mama, grandmother, or neighborhood auntie running a very serious side hustle out of her den, kitchen, or living room. And if you had a good Candy Lady, she didn’t just sell candy. She had hot dogs, chips, sodas—and yes, the candy selection was elite.

My neighborhood Candy Lady lived literally right next door to the middle school I attended. Once you walked through the door off her car porch, you were free to browse the neatly stacked boxes of Now-and-Laters (properly pronounced Now-ah-laters, because that’s how I heard it), Green Apple Stix, and my personal favorite—purple Blow Pops. And yes, purple is a flavor, just like red Kool-Aid is a flavor in the Black community.

The Candy Lady wasn’t big on small talk. She was all business.“Blow Pops is twenty-five cents,” she said.

I hadn’t even asked—I guess I lingered too long. I pulled a quarter from my change purse and happily skipped out of her garage, Blow Pop in hand, headed home.

Unwrapping a Blow Pop was always a chore because sometimes the wrapper refused to let go of the stick. No worries—I’d leave it on as a protective cover just in case I couldn’t finish and had to shove it into my backpack. Real Blow Pop connoisseurs know: it takes time to get to the good stuff in the center. If you rush it, you risk cracking a tooth—or worse—missing the joy of slowly savoring that sweet, tangy purple flavor.

And just like that, life shows up with a lesson.

So many of us spend our youth rushing—trying to get to the next sweet spot instead of enjoying the process of living slowly. If I could turn back the hands of time, I would linger longer. I would savor more deeply some very precious moments.

The truth is, we spend most of our lives chasing the “good stuff in the center.” Blow Pops are designed to open up at an appointed time—or, as some would say, divine timing. According to candyfavorites.com, it takes approximately 638 licks to reach the center of a Blow Pop (in case you were wondering).

And once you crack that shell? Whew. That purple flavor fuses perfectly with the sweet, chewy pink bubblegum center.

Ahhhhh. Perfection!

That’s the moment when everything comes together.

I like to call that the Better Gray season of life.

You’ve worked hard. You’ve waited long. You’ve earned the reward—only to discover that the sweetness doesn’t last as long as you thought it would. And that’s when Florida Evans’ “Damn, damn, damn!” feels especially appropriate.

I founded Better Gray to help us learn how to enjoy the sweetness of right now. It’s easy to assume this season is flavorless, to become stale, to toss it aside.

Naaaaaw. Miss me with that!

Graying in place can be joyful. Exciting. Full of anticipation and reward. Life, my darling, can be gray-ter later (see what I did there?).

As a kid, I figured out I could stretch the sweetness of that “flavorless” pink bubblegum center by sprinkling a little sugar on it. So, I invite you to take this journey of Better Gray-tness with me weekly beginning February 1st by tuning in to the Living Better Gray Podcast. We will talk honestly about savoring life, honoring our stories, and living well in this season.

Let’s keep sprinkling sugar together—for as long as we can.

Blow Pop, anyone?