I was watching a good old action movie the other night that was placed in today’s timeline. There was a scene where the hero and heroine were hiding out in a non-descript motel. This sort of thing seems to happen pretty frequently in movies. They did have separate beds though. Well, at the beginning anyhow, but that is not the matter I wanted to mention. The hero in this movie who is a very large mass of muscle likes junk food. He had gathered some from a convenience store and was spotted by the heroine eating a Clark Bar. She was surprised that he would eat something like that so she ate a Zagnut which surprised him as he didn’t feel anyone would eat a Zagnut over a Clark Bar.
A Zagnut as you may recall was essentially a Clark Bar without the chocolate. I was surprised at the exchange as neither candy bar is readily available now – especially at a convenience store. I used to like a good Clark Bar and would even eat a Zagnut if there wasn’t anything else around. I also liked a Fifth Avenue which was like a Clark Bar but with almonds. Of course, that was mostly in the real good old days when you could get a large candy bar for a nickel.
When I was in the seventh grade, I took classes in a very old two-story wooden building. We were on the second floor of what was really a fire trap. However, the school board took good care of us. There was a fire escape right off the room with not only steps to the ground, but there was also a fire pole you could slide down like a real fireman.
However, the most notable aspect of this old building was that it had wooden floors. The floors had holes in them, and previous seventh graders had stuffed old candy bars wrappers by the score in said holes. We would pull them out and would marvel at their size which surpassed what we kids were used to. Those wrappers were huge compared to today’s bar that as we all know are no longer a nickel. Many of them were from before WW II, and you would be amazed at the size of a Hershey Bar then. There were also O’Henry, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Heath, Payday, Suchard (which is little remembered), and others of various types. One large chocolate bar from back then was a Klein bar that sold for three cents.
I don’t think I ever had a three cent Klein bar, but better than that my first city manager position was in Elizabethtown, Pa. which is in Lancaster County. They still made the Klein bar when we lived there – although it was not sold for three cents. What was great was the fact that you would walk down the streets of Elizabethtown and everything smelled like chocolate. The Blonde in the House thought that was great as did our oldest son. The longtime residents were rather jaded and did not really notice the smell, but I can assure you it was much nicer smelling than some of the places I have lived. Elizabethtown is only a short distance from Hershey as the robin flies, and there were other communities nearby that had candy factories. As a result, one of the products used as mulch around houses was used vanilla beans. They added color and a nice smelling community as well.
After we left, the Klein chocolate factory was bought out by the Mars candy company. I don’t know if the town smells as good as it did with Klein, but it probably does quite well. The eating emporium where we now live had Milky Way ice cream the other day. That reminded me that I have become convinced that I am the last person around who remembers when the Three Musketeer bar was introduced by Mars and what it was like. It was called Three Musketeer as it had three sections and each had a different flavor. One mound was vanilla, another was chocolate and the third one was strawberry.
Scoff, if you want, but I remember my candy!
Barry Evans is a columnist for Villages-News.com.