Cotton Candy Sky

Our house on 25 Alston Ave in New Haven was five blocks from the Yale Bowl. Each fall Yale would play host to a half dozen football games. My first recollection of going to the games was in 1958 or ’59. I don’t think I really followed the games that closely then… I just went. It was an activity.

In 1960 Yale went undefeated and untied. Mike Pyle captained the Team. His senior year he played offensive tackle (and back in those days I think he played “2 ways”…. playing on defense as well as offense). He had gone to New Trier High School in Chicago which for many years was famous for sending 2 or 3 of its star players (and somewhat bright students) to Yale. After graduating, Pyle went on to play for the Chicago Bears (this was at a time when you could count the players in the NFL who came from the Ivies on your left hand and still have room to pick your nose and thumb a ride). He would become Captain of the Bears and a NFL All Star at Center.

In a quirk of scheduling, Yale played 7 of its 8 games at home that year. I saw every game that Yale played that year. The only away game being Harvard (which my father took me to… we went up and back on the train, with a bunch of rowdy Eli faithful).

I was 10, and that would be the year that I would become a huge Yale fan.

The following year my parents let me go to games by myself. A ticket cost $2., a program $1., a hot dog $.50, a coke $.25, a bag of peanuts $.25, and cotton candy $.25. I would be staked to $5. and I would walk to the Bowl by myself.

After buying a ticket and a program I would walk to Portal 26 and grab the aisle seat immediately to the left and 1 row down. I would be there an hour before game time and would have the chance to watch the teams warming-up on the field. I would scan the players and the stands with my binoculars. My dad had a great pair of binoculars… I could tell whether a guy handed the peanut vendor a $5 or a $1 from 100 yds away!

Over the years I got acquainted with the “regulars” who would sit in the same area… and by the time I was at High School I would have the company of a couple of neighborhood kids, too.

I would always have 2 hot dogs during the game and a coke (sometimes 2 cokes). Then I would treat myself to either peanuts (to take home for later)… or on occasion cotton candy.

Cotton Candy back then was always pink. And while not a big fan (there were kids who seemed addicted), I did enjoy the airy and sticky sweetness. But it did create a sticky mess, both on my hands and mouth, that couldn’t really be remedied ’til after I got home… and secondly, it made me thirsty.

But I did enjoy the sight of those “pink bouquets.”

Somewhere along the path, cotton candy also became available in turquoise blue. I could never fully understand it. Maybe someone felt that little boys felt uncomfortable eating something in public that was pink? I thought it might taste different; but it didn’t. And worse… now instead of a little added pink to your complexion around the mouth, there was now this hideous blue/green smudge.

So maybe your first recollection of cotton candy is at a circus, or zoo… maybe a country fair; but mine was the stadium where Mike Pyle and Calvin Hill competed on autumn Saturdays… and having $5 in your pocket made you the richest guy on earth.