Cinnamon Tooth Picks

When I was growing up in Willow Meadows in Southwest Houston, my best friend next door Barry Bridges decided to make some Cinnamon Tooth Picks.  All the corner quick stop grocery / gasoline stores were selling them and it was the "rage" for kids.  Barry and me were around 11 years old at that time.  Barry got a small glass jar and filled with hot spicy cinnamon and placed some tooth picks into the jar to soak for a couple of days.

In our neighborhood, there were many kids: Dick, Mike and Sharon Brousard; Barry and David Bridges; Richard, Brian and Charlie Schowinski; and, of course me and my brother David.  The oldest where Dick, Barry, Richard and myself.  All the others were around 2 to 3 years younger.

Barry placed the jar full of toothpicks high on a shelf in his room.  Barry told all of us that when they were finished soaking then he would have to remove them and let them dry.  No one was to get any of the cinnamon liquid on them and rub their eyes, inside of their nose or ears. 

One day Barry and me came back from riding our bikes to find Mrs Bridges running frantically in the house trying to calm and help all the other kids in our neighborhood.  All the kids were rubbing their eyes crying and screaming!  As soon as Barry walked in through the back door, Mrs Bridges began chewing him out and telling him he was going to be grounded for a week.  I saw the cinnamon jar on the kitchen table half full of tooth picks and new that the other kids had stupidly got impatient and simply grabbed a tooth pick or more out of the jar thus getting the hot spicy liquid on their fingers.