{"id":109655,"date":"2019-05-16T08:17:26","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T12:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=109655"},"modified":"2019-05-22T12:59:52","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:59:52","slug":"the-key-brands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=109655","title":{"rendered":"The Key Brands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m not a huge cereal guy. And? I don\u2019t know if I was ever a real cereal guy.<\/em> Maybe as a kid? But once I entered Union I discovered the exceptional quality of eggs over-easy & whatever my interest in cereal went into permanent decline. Still, today I try (notice, try<\/em>) to put my spoon in a bowl of cereal on occasion. For several years now my consumption of cereal, maybe one or two times a week, has been confined to either Frosted Mini-Wheats, or Honey-nut Cheerios. Well, even the most confirmed lover of poetry can tire of William Shakespeare and Winnie the Pooh, no? And so it was on a recent visit to Stop & Shop, Sandy I worked our way down Aisle 7 (cereal & candy) and I decided to grab a box of Special\u00a0K. Special\u00a0K? Mommie Soph told me to do it! And I did! And in doing so, put me in\u00a0mind of a few key brands that I identify with 25 Alston Ave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below, a brief, and by no means complete, survey of distinctive brands that took up residence at 25 Alston Ave.<\/p>\n\n\n

Special K<\/h4>\n

\"Kellogg's<\/p>\n

This was Mommie Soph\u2019s cereal of choice. And I think she had it every day for breakfast. Growing up I think I had cold cereal for breakfast on most days, and I think that Special K was not a top option for me.<\/p>\n

Chesterfield Cigarettes<\/h4>\n

\"Chesterfield<\/p>\n

Mom\u2019s brand of smokes. She was a two-pack-a-day smoker. Dad told me that he introduced smoking to her when they were young, and when smoking was thought to be a sign of sophistication. Sadly, while Dad was able to be a \u201csocial smoker,\u201d Mom became addicted to nicotine. Notice the typeface on the brand. Remind you of Chipp, Inc?<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

Vermont Maid Maple Syrup<\/h4>\n

\"Vermont<\/p>\n

Pancakes were only on the breakfast menu occasionally (when I was growing up). Waffles would only have been a \u201cpop-in-the-toaster\u201d thing (and I am not even sure if toaster waffles were around when we lived at 25 Alston). And I can never recall having French toast (but we probably did). That said, we always had a bottle of maple syrup in the house. And back then, it was called maple syrup<\/em> \u2014 not syrup.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wonder Bread<\/h4>\n

\"Wonder<\/p>\n

This was a sticking point with me. I wanted \u201cbatter whipped\u201d Sunbeam Bread\u2026 light, fluffy and more appealing. We were Wonder Bread people. It supposedly had a higher \u201cnutritional value\u201d?<\/p>\n

Minute Maid OJ & Pink Lemonade (frozen concentrated)<\/h4>\n

<\/p>\n

As a kid, I drank juice straight from the fridge, no glass used. And I drank a lot of it! And on a summer day there was nothing more frustrating to me than to run into the house, thirst crazed, and find no juice already made. I would take the a can out of the freezer, open it up, take a knife and proceed to chop at the frozen block of juice to speed the defrosting process along. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not a huge cereal guy. And? I don\u2019t know if I was ever a real cereal guy. Maybe as a kid? But once I entered Union I discovered the exceptional quality of eggs over-easy & whatever my interest in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-small-pictures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109655"}],"version-history":[{"count":127,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109807,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109655\/revisions\/109807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}