Okay Fred, Cracker Jacks or Lucky Elephant?

AS A KID, I WAS A SLAVE TO A LUCKY ELEPHANT - AND THE CRACKER JACKS SAILOR

I NEEDED A SUGAR FIX AND THE PRIZE IN THE BOX

     ALL THESE YEARS LATER, WITH CHILDHOOD ALMOST A HALF CENTURY BACK IN TIME, I'M STILL A PRODUCT PACKAGE HOUND, (A WILLING VICTIM OF SAVVY MARKETING) LOOKING FOR THE FREE STUFF WITHIN. HOW MANY GUYS DO YOU KNOW WHO LIKE TO GO SHOPPING? GROCERY SHOPPING SPECIFICALLY? I HAVE ALWAYS ENJOYED A TRIP TO THE GROCERY STORE, AND IN MY DAY, I WAS A DAILY, AND SOMETIMES HOURLY, VISITOR TO OUR CORNERS SHOPS, IN BRACEBRIDGE. MY TWO FAVORITES WERE "LIL & CEC'S," AND "BAMFORDS," ON TORONTO STREET, BUT I DID OCCASIONALLY SNEAK DOWN TO ROCHE'S VARIETY ON SPENCER STREET, BECAUSE THEY HAD BETTER PRICES ON SOME OF THE CENT CANDY. SEEING AS THEY WERE JUST AROUND THE BLOCK FROM THE JUBILEE PARK BALL DIAMOND, AND I PLAYED IN THAT SANDLOT AT LEAST TWICE A WEEK IN THE SUMMER, IT WAS A NICE, SHORT BIKE RIDE TO SPENCER STREET WITH COINS JANGLING IN MY POCKETS. YOU COULDN'T PLAY BASEBALL WITHOUT A POCKET FULL OF BLACK BALLS, AND LICORICE, PLUS A SMALL COLLECTION OF NEWLY OPENED BASEBALL CARDS. YOU KNOW THE KIND…….FROM THE "TOPPS" COMPANY, WITH THE ROCK HARD, RAZOR THIN GUM THAT CRACKED LIKE A SHARD OF GLASS IN YOUR MOUTH……AND CUT THE GUMS.

     SUZANNE DOESN'T HAVE TO COAX ME TO GO TO THE GROCERY STORE, BUT SHE ALWAYS HAS TO HURRY-ME-UP, BECAUSE I DAWDLE, WHILE READING THE PACKAGING OF PRODUCTS THAT CATCH MY ATTENTION. I THINK THIS CAME FROM THOSE MANY YEARS STARING INTO THE BIG GLASS DISPLAY CASES AT THE CORNER STORES, AND UP AT THEIR BEAUTIFUL COUNTERTOP SHELVES FULL OF CANDY BARS AND OH YES…..THAT LUCKY ELEPHANT. I DON'T WANT TO OFFEND ANYONE WITH THIS, BUT I ALWAYS FAVORED LUCKY ELEPHANT OVER CRACKER JACKS, ALTHOUGH THE PRIZES WERE PRETTY MUCH THE SAME. I MARRIED A LADY WHO WAS ALSO A LUCKY ELEPHANT FAN. HER FAMILY SOLD LUCKY ELEPHANT AT THEIR MARINA SNACKBAR, IN WINDERMERE, ON LAKE ROSSEAU, AND THE FOLKS WHO ENJOYED A BOX OR TWO, WHILE SITTING IN THE CAFE KNOWN AS "THE SKIPPER," USED TO DONATE THE PRIZES, TO A COLLECTION THAT WAS KEPT ON AN INSIDE WINDOW LEDGE FOR THAT SUMMER'S NOVELTY DISPLAY. THIS WAS BACK IN THE LATE 1960'S AND EARLY 1970'S. SO WHILE THE JUKE BOX PUMPED OUT ROCK 'N ROLL, THE LUCKY ELEPHANT BRAND WAS IN VOGUE.

     WHEN I WENT SHOPPING WITH MY MOTHER MERLE, I DROVE HER NUTS WITH MY CONSTANT REQUESTS, TO BUY PRODUCTS I HAD SEEN ADVERTISED ON TELEVISION. THE KICKER HERE, WAS THAT THESE PARTICULAR PRODUCTS, WERE THE ONES WITH PRIZES AND TOYS INSIDE. I HOUNDED THE POOR WOMAN FOR EVERY PRODUCT, FROM TEA TO PUDDINGS, CHIPS TO PEANUT BUTTER, THAT HAD SOMETHING NEAT INSIDE. WADE FIGURINES IN SALADA TEA AND COLLECTOR CARDS IN RED ROSE TEA. HOCKEY CARDS INSIDE THE LIDS OF YORK PEANUT BUTTER. THERE WERE NEAT WESTERN THEME TOYS IN HONEYCOMB CEREAL, COLLECTOR PICTURE COINS IN SHERIFF PUDDINGS, I BELIEVE. THERE WERE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE, ORIGINAL SIX HOCKEY PORTRAITS ON THE LIDS OF COCA COLA BOTTLES, AND THERE WERE MILITARY PLANES IN SMALL BAGS OF HOSTESS POTATO CHIPS. THERE WAS A NEAT PLASTIC ICE-CREAM CENTRE, IN THE BURIED TREASURE CONES, AND IN JUST ABOUT EVERY PACKAGE OF KIDS-TARGETED CEREAL, THERE WAS SOME TOY OR PRIZE, AND MANY OF THEM WERE ADVERTISED ON TELEVISION; ESPECIALLY ON SATURDAY MORNINGS, BEFORE MERLE AND I WENT UP TO THE A & P ON MANITOBA STREET. I NEVER PASSED A PACKAGE, OF SOME PRODUCT, THAT WAS ADVERTISING A PRIZE IN EVERY BOX. I WAS THE BIG FISH AND THEY HAD THE SHARP HOOKS. I WAS A WHOLESALE DISASTER WHEN IT CAME TO BEING SWAYED BY THE OFFER OF SOMETHING FOR FREE. I'M AS BAD TODAY, BUT HONESTLY, THE PRIZES ARE PRETTY SHABBY COMPARED TO THOSE HALCYON COLLECTING DAYS OF THE 1960'S.

     AS I WATCHED EVERY KID SHOW, EACH CARTOON, EVERY CANADIAN OFFERING, LIKE "THE FOREST RANGERS," AND ALL-STAR WRESTLING, I DRANK IN ALL THE SPECIAL OFFERS, AND EVEN WENT AS FAR AS MAKING A LIST SO I WOULDN'T MISS THESE ITEMS AT THE GROCERY STORE. WITH MY PARENTS BEING BROKE MOST OF THE TIME, AND THE FACT IT WAS LUCKY IF WE EVEN HAD A CAR TO FETCH THESE GROCERY ITEMS HOME, MERLE HAD VERY LITTLE FLEXIBILITY TO GIVE ME WHAT I WANTED. BLESS HER SOUL, SHE TRIED THE BEST SHE COULD, TO ACCOMMODATE MY LATEST FIXATIONS, AND I CAN REMEMBER, FOR ONE THING, GETTING MOST OF THE YORK HOCKEY CARD COLLECTION. THEY WERE SIX SIDED I BELIEVE, THE SAME SHAPE AS THE LID. YORK OFFERED AN AFFORDABLE PEANUT BUTTER, SO IT WASN'T TOO MUCH OF A BUDGET STRETCH TO GET ME A NEW JAR EVERY TWO WEEKS. THE DEAL WAS, THE PROMOTIONS WERE ALL TIME LIMITED, AND I WAS THE ONLY HOUSEHOLDER WHO LIKED PEANUT BUTTER. NEEDLESS TO SAY, I DIDN'T GET MY SET MADE IN TIME.

I DO THINK IT ALL INFLUENCED MY COLLECTING INTERESTS UP TO AND INCLUDING THE PRESENT

     I still have a huge soft spot for hockey and baseball cards. I mucked all mine up, because of the games we used to play with them. In the school yard we used to toss them like tiny frisbies against the school, and the closest to the wall took all the other cards. Well the cards got beat up pretty bad, being thrown against a wall, which pretty much ruined the corners, and the rough concrete surface scratched the photo sides of the cards. When we sold cards, at our Bracebridge antique shop, in the early 1990's, I loved to see the collectors show up with their jeweler's magnifying glasses, to examine the cards up close to determine condition. It was real hard to get hockey and baseball cards from the vintage of the 1960's and 70's, without footprints on them, greasy finger prints, chocolate residue, and creases from those times we clothes-pegged them into our bicycle spokes, so they would sound like small motorcycles. We never worried about condition. We were having too much fun playing with them. Of course many of us, who had the sense to hang onto those player cards, were then disappointed to find out, just how much of the sky-rocketing values, were directly proportional to condition. Of course, we treated the new release cards much better, but you know, even our boys didn't enjoy them half as much as I did in my day. Then they got this idea that the wouldn't open some of the packs they paid big prices for…..and that was really the beginning of the end. I'm not one who would be kind, in any debate, with collectors who refuse to remove toys from their packages, based on values as the only consideration. I know they've found a status quo on this matter, and are attracted by sealed packages protecting their action figures (for example) for future investment return, but honestly, I come from an era when toys and treasures were meant to be coveted, fondled, played-with for hours on end, worn out and then finally traded for something else. Both my sons destroyed well over two hundred Hot Wheels, by taking them out to the sandbox, and leaving them there through the seasons. When I dig gardens for Suzanne in the backyard, in almost every patch, I find at least one Hot Wheel and maybe even a Dinky Toy, which does make me mad, because the boys had guaranteed me, these one (the more valuable) were not to be taken out of doors. But honestly, they had a blast with their toys, as Suzanne and I did respectively, with our childhood play-things.

     If I ever had a change of heart about collecting old books and original art, I think honestly, I would opt back to build up a small inventory of Hot Wheels. When Mattel came out with the first Hot Wheels, I was all over them that first Christmas season, and low and behold, I got three in my stocking. But no track. I had to wait three years for that, and by that point, the cars were destroyed. But I had a bright orange track for them to sit on, but they didn't move very quickly at this point of corrosion. Suzanne came upon me one day recently, at the Bracebridge Re-Store, sneaking behind while I was standing in the used toy section, contently fingering some small trucks. "What are you doing Ted," she demanded, although she knew without asking the question, that I was reliving my childhood, with a couple of worn old toys set up on the shelf. "I'm trying to re-invent my childhood, but every time I do, someone like you brings me back to the present." "So I'll buy you a couple of these little cars, and you can play with them at home," she says, and momentarily, and although I will never admit this to her, I could see Merle standing there winking her eye at me, like she used to, when I'd ask for a product with a prize inside. The wink meant, "Not today, not next week, or the week after that. Sugar (inn the case of candy) will rot your teeth." I know this is true, because on one trip to the dentist, Merle started to cry when the doctor said, "Teddy has to stop eating black balls. He's got seventeen cavities." I spent most of that summer, visiting the dentist's office, for being a push-over to the mass media marketing of things that were bad for me……apparently. I'm still alive at fifty-seven, so I guess we'll find out soon, if black balls took years off my life, while riddling my teeth with cavities.

     I used to load the kids in the car, and pull Suzanne by the arm, to take a once monthly trip up to Robinson's General Store, in Dorset, Ontario, before its recent modernization. It was just like an old trading post, and I was in heaven with those old time displays and the creaking and movable wooden floors. It was a real treat, when I worked as a reporter in MacTier, Ontario, to go across the road from our office, to the Red & White Grocery Store, with many of the same vintage, nostalgic attributes, that I remember from the former Bracebridge A&P, on Manitoba Street's Queen's Hill. There was something magical and enchanted about those grand stores of yesteryear, and the fine folks who maintained the traditions, as clerks and butchers. I've had many long talks with Fred Schulz, of Gravenhurst, about his family's years operating the former Kilworthy General Store, and I think that's where he became addicted to Lucky Elephant as well. Well Fred? Which had the best qualities of taste, quantity and prize? Lucky Elephant, or Cracker Jacks? I'll let the readers know the answer tomorrow.

     Geez, writing about this stuff has made me hungry. I'd run out for some black balls, but Suzanne won't let them in the house. Believe it or not, she says, "Teddy Currie, they will be the death of you one of these days!" Some things never change. I defied my mother, and I shall defy my wife……and yes, I will undoubtedly need dental assistance some time in the near future, for a broken tooth and cavities.

     Bless you all for taking the time today to visit this nostalgic writer, trapped in a childhood bubble……a fantasy held over by popular demand, that honestly, I'm good with! What Suzanne doesn't know won't hurt her. It's not like I'm having an affair. Just a few boxes of Lucky Elephant I've got stashed in the car, for solo road trips, on the old antique hunt and gather. I'm not done with childish behavior just yet. See you again soon.