Bedford, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1963—I was eight years old, about to turn nine, a skinny blond kid with four sisters and a brother, living in a big old Victorian house a block from the town common. I got a dime allowance every Sunday—or possibly I’d just gotten a raise to twenty cents, I’m not entirely sure, but it doesn’t matter—either way, it wasn’t very much, and I tried to stretch it as far as I could. Most weeks I would walk up to the corner, where there was a tiny block of stores too small to be called a shopping center, to spend it.

At the north end of the shops was the Bedford Tailor, which I have never set foot in to this day. At the south end was Harry Silverman’s little grocery, usually referred to simply as “the corner store,” where my sisters and I bought penny candy. It really cost a penny back then, and certain varieties could be had for less, such as these two-for- a-penny strange green squares called “mint juleps” that you had to soak in your mouth for a minute before they got soft enough to chew, and Chum Gum, the world’s cheapest chewing gum, which came three sticks to the two-cent pack.

I’d usually spend a nickel at Harry’s, mostly on mint juleps and Chum Gum just because that meant I got more for my money.

But the rest of my allowance I saved for the middle of the three-store block. That  …