Is it a trick or a treat? Carleen Toole of Marietta shares a magical moment. Before microwave popcorn was all the frenzy, friends sent Toole a small jar of popcorn with instructions to empty the corn into a paper bag and microwave it. Around the same time, Toole purchased harvest corn to decorate her table at Thanksgiving.

“I looked at it and thought, ‘I wondered if that would work (in the microwave). I thought I might burn my microwave up, but tried it anyway,” she said.

Toole washed the ears of corn, put them in the microwave and hit the popcorn button.

“It worked. We had popcorn,” said the mother of three grown children. Following her discovery, Toole’s grandsons, Michael (then 5 years old), and Nicholas Knautz (then 1 year old) visited her.

“I showed Michael, and he thought (popping corn on the cob) was neat. We had a trick,” the Marietta resident said.

That Thanksgiving, Toole and Michael (now 16) hosted “Michael’s Magic Moment.” He gathered the family around the microwave, put the harvest corn in the microwave and pushed the popcorn button.

“Of course, nobody knew what was going to happen,” Toole said.

Like magic, Michael popped popcorn. Sometimes the popcorn pops off the cob, and sometimes it stays on.

“That particular day that Michael and Nicholas were over here and we did it, the popcorn stayed on and I took pictures of them eating popcorn off the cob,” she recalled. “They just thought it was really neat. It was just by accident I thought it might work,” Toole said.

Michael’s magical moment was a real treat!