We heard them when we were young, and we probably rolled our eyes just as the younger generation does now at what I call the you-have-it-so-good-because-in-my-day stories. You know the ones I mean: I walked seven miles to school in the snow, I studied my lessons by candlelight, I had one pair of shoes I shared with three siblings, etc. Perhaps they are true, merely an exaggeration, or totally a figment of an older imagination. But whatever they are, they are always irritating to those on the receiving end.
But I have a bit of happy news for those of us of a certain age. We have provided our grandchildren with an authentic you-have-it-so-good-because-in-my-day story. I know this because a friend recently brought to my notice a news article about a new plant that is being built in Longmont, Colorado, a city just north of Denver that lies in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains to the west. The city is welcoming the arrival of a business that will provide 250 new jobs with a promise of more to come. The business is Smuckers, a family owned operation for five generations that has the very catchy slogan “With a name like Smuckers it has to be good.”
The news from Longmont is that they have moved on from jams and jellies to what they are calling “uncrustables.” No, I did not make that up. These new products are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches frozen, boxed and sold straight to you from your grocery store freezer. Obviously, they have removed the offending crusts from these gems, and with the opening of a new factory, in addition to the original one in Kentucky, these beauties must be hopping off the shelf.
Surely, you can now see the story that can be woven from this. Our poor generation, slaving over a cutting board, laboriously spreading first the peanut butter and then the jelly on a slice of bread before lifting, with a sigh, the knife to cut it in half. But this suffering is nothing to what our children had to face when presented with this hand-crafted creation. Horror of horrors, they had to eat the sandwich with the crusts still attached. It makes the seven miles in the snow pale in comparison.