Gone, but not Forgotten
One of the many great things about candy is how much sense memory it brings to an individual. When I think about Reese’s Cups, I’m instantaneously transported to my youth, vividly recalling stacking up the dozens of single packaged cups that I had acquired after a night of trick or treating.
I remember the smell of the wrapper, with its slightly acrid aroma, a cross between chocolate and paper treated with some sort of polymer. I also remember dividing the candy into two piles, one to be eaten in the near future (24 hours) and one to bet set aside and used to taunt various siblings who were foolish enough to eat the Snickers and Hershey bars prior to eating the Chuckles and Good n’ Plenties.
Steve Almond and I could have been from the same family.
That I can remember the memories above, but forget to return DVDs as well as significant family birthdays remains a source of consternation to those close to me.
Then I came across these sites. Here are long lost friends now documented in a handy list format. As I read them, I felt the same wash of sadness that I have when I read significant obituaries. Yes, it’s quite sad that Richard Pryor passed away, but to me, it’s equally sad that Ice Cream gum and Good-n-Fruity are discontinued products.
Conversely, when I discovered a previously-thought-of-as-discontinued product has been, in fact, resurrected under a new name, I dance a small dance in my head and think of ways to try to get candy companies to revert the product name back to the old one. If someone has a petition that requests the makers of the Almond Snickers bar to rightfully call it a Mars bar, I would sign it with a signature so large, it’d make John Hancock proud.
What other foods have this effect upon the population? None that I can think of.
Oh, wait. There are the cereals of my youth.
Damn them for discontinuing Cap’n Crunch’s Cinnamon Crunch Cereal.
