In the Chips & Crackers aisle of the grocery store the other day I came across a shelf of Bugles, a snack I hadn’t seen since childhood. I had assumed they were no longer sold. Maybe I’d just outgrown them somewhere along the line, dropping them like a crumpled bag from my consciousness as I became a responsible adult eater. But who doesn’t remember wearing a Bugle on each fingertip like a set of claws before gobbling them one by one?
Looking up some info later, I discovered that Bugles are officially sixty years old this year. Happy Birthday, Bugles! Sold regionally for a year or two, they made their national debut in 1966. So did several companion snacks, like Whistles, Daisies, Buttons, and Bows, all of those long gone and none of which I remember. But what other products had I waltzed by in the store that day, unaware of their respective sixtieth anniversaries?
Well, as long as we’re crunching: Doritos. In the soft drink section, there’s Fresca. For the healthier, Quaker Instant Oatmeal. (Throw all of ‘em into the shopping cart. Now there’s a feast!) If still hungry, we could grab a pack of Razzles ((“First it’s a candy, then it’s a gum!”), another 1966 arrival on the market, though I recall seeing them only at movie theater concession stands. (I might’ve been there buying a ticket for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly or Born Free. Both top-ten at the box office in 1966, two more antithetical films I’d be hard-pressed to think of. Yet most of us boomers could name their iconic theme music in three notes. Maybe just two.)
Cruising past the school and office supplies next time, I’ll grab a little bottle of Wite-Out, yet another celebrant at 60, to assist my correcting and editing as I scribble away. I’m not sure many people use it anymore, unless to sniff it like the proverbial glue—perhaps the rationale behind the one-item-per-customer rule I was apprised of at check-out. Of course, this magic liquid comes in all sorts of colors by now, whatever the ink I happen to put on paper amenable and emendable to its ministrations. I won’t have to apply it to my next shopping list, though. I know exactly what to buy.
James Scruton writes, shops, and keeps track of time in Brookville, Ohio.
