Candied Popcorn Balls

It was I would say about September 1971.  It was the afternoon before a Mutual activity. I was asked to bring candied popcorn balls. So with help from my mom this is how it went down.

When we pop popcorn that we are going to candy we always air pop it right into the kitchen sink.  Makes clean up a snap.  So that afternoon we did just that.  Once the popcorn was done, it was on to making the candy syrup used to cover the popcorn.  The syrup by the way is cooked to about 250 degrees.  Okay popcorn done, syrup ready.  Now it is time to cover the popcorn and then shape it into popcorn balls.  The trick to this is you have to work fast.  So that day my mom stirred the popcorn around in the sink while I poured the syrup over the popcorn.  In my effort to pour quickly and her attempt to stir quickly I poured the syrup, the very oh so hot syrup right over the top of her hand. OUCH!  Big Ouch! Big Giant Ouch! To make matters worse her first reaction was to go to the freeze to get ice; which wasn't necessarily a bad reaction but we should of just turned on the water so she could let the water run over her hand and stop the burning.  But the sink was full of popcorn so of course she didn't do that.........that would be wasteful or something.  It was crazy.  Oh and my mom was pregnant with my youngest brother at the time. So for several months she was one handed or at least had very limited use of her hand.  So the moral of the story is, it is okay to ruin a sink full of popcorn if you should pour the syrup on yourself........... in case you didn't figure that out already!