Guncrank Diaries

Youth is wasted on the young. That’s not an original aphorism. Our society and culture revere youth and vitality. However, from my perspective as a card-carrying old guy, young people are just too blasted stupid.

It really is a wonder any of us survived. We eat things, do things, and inculcate deleterious lifelong habits like there’s just no tomorrow. Then we wake up one day, realize that there is actually a tomorrow, and it has arrived. There are countless practical examples.

I’m 59 years old. My nominal life expectancy is 84.5 years. The current overall life expectancy is 77.43 years. Mine is longer because I was fortunate enough to have already survived my stupid years. However, that’s not for lack of trying.

I do so miss many aspects of youth. I recall with fondness the capacity to plop down onto the floor onto my knees and then jump right back up again. Were I to try that now, I would likely just flop like a beached catfish about until I starved to death. I also mourn the passing of deep, long sleep. Weaponizing a wicked case of insomnia is what has allowed me to become such a prolific writer. Above it all, however, I think I most miss being able to eat anything I want.

I’ve always been kind of skinny. However, when I was a kid, I didn’t have to work at it. Nowadays, it is a daily chore not to get fat. I have to tap the brakes with every meal lest that infernal scale notify me of my imminent mortal demise. I simply no longer get to eat what I want.
I recall back in the day riding my bike down Anderson Boulevard to the city baseball fields. I made $1.50 cutting the family yard every other week. Most of that went to plastic models, glue, and paint. However, if ever I had anything left over, I would hit the concession stand to sample their lethal wares. One of my perennial favorites was Pixie Stix.

You remember this vile stuff. It was basically a long plastic tube filled with granulated sugar. There was a little artificial flavor sprinkled in so they wouldn’t have to advertise it as “Big Honkin’ Tube-o-Diabetes.” I would get the attendant to snip the top and then upend that ghastly garbage in a veritable fit of sugar-fueled bliss. Were I to do that today, my pancreas might quite literally explode.

There were lots of hyper-sugary candies back then. That, coupled with the fact that we never walk anyplace anymore, is why one-tenth of the adult American population has diabetes today. Fifty percent of all African-American kids born after the year 2000 will have diabetes. Yeah, in case you’re wondering, we’re all pretty much screwed. It all started with stuff like Pixie Stix.

Another perennial Halloween favorite was Smarties. These adorable little pressed sugar pellets came in a variety of flavors all randomly wrapped in stacks of cellophane. It turns out that there’s a pretty neat story behind Smarties candies.

Origin Story

In the 1940s, a British confectioner named Edward Dee immigrated from England to New Jersey. He opened his first candy factory in 1949 in Bloomfield, NJ. Fourteen years later, Dee broke ground on another plant in Toronto, Canada. They originally called themselves Ce De Candy Inc., but later changed their name to Smarties. In Canada, Nestle already marketed a candy called Smarties, so they named the same little pelletized candies Rockets up there.

Edward Dee had already perfected Rockets while he was living in England. Those first versions were flavored with cloves and cinnamon. Rockets were developed in the aftermath of World War I.

After WWI, like after all such wars, military equipment was sold off for pennies on the dollar. One of the things that Edward Dee purchased was disused gunpowder pellet machines. These contraptions were used to compress gunpowder down into pelletized form for use in military ordnance. Dee just scrubbed out these machines, substituted sugar for gunpowder, and started churning out pelletized candies.

Evolution in Action

In the 1970s, traditional cane sugar got really expensive. As a result, the Dee family began making Smarties out of beet sugar and then dextrose or corn sugar. At the same time, soft drink makers shifted from cane sugar to high-fructose corn syrup in stuff like Coke and Pepsi. This is the reason I look on with envy every time I drive past my dentist’s thriving clinic.

Smarties are ubiquitous in American society. The company estimates that they are produced by billions of tubes every year. Not unlike staples such as SweeTarts, Sprees, Everlasting Gobstoppers, and Nerds, Smarties will indeed reliably rot your teeth and overwhelm your pancreas. However, they are undeniably sweet. And to think they were originally produced on the same machines that produced explosive ordnance for the British during World War I.

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