Jawbreakers, Guess Whats and Baby Ruth

A penny doesn’t buy much anymore. We always had to have a few available when the city still had parking meters but that too is history. It costs more than a penny to make a penny. So why do we still have them? Probably because they are a tradition and I suppose the feeling that if they were discontinued the price of a can or bottle of something would go up to the next five or ten cent bracket.

John D. Rockefeller was always quoted as saying, “Save your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.” He was America’s first billionaire. He was a billionaire at a time when the average American didn't have $100 and had no way of raising $100 if he had to. And to many people the idea of a billion dollars was beyond comprehension. Now the word billion is used daily by state and federal governments. Maybe if John D. Rockefeller was alive today he would tell the elected officials, “Save the billions and the trillions will take care of themselves.”

When Jean and I ride bikes we see lots of pennies on the streets and in gutters. Usually I ride right on by but she will always stop. If the penny is face up it’s supposed to be good luck. To her just finding a penny is good luck. I have the feeling that if people drop some change they pick it all up but the pennies.

When I was a youngster growing up in the 1930s if you found a penny or somehow earned a few cents you often times headed for the nearest ma and pa store where penny items seemed to flourish. The small grocery stores were located so that you could walk to any of them. Most were out in different neighborhoods as well as in the business districts of small towns and yes, larger cities, too.

A penny then would buy lots of items, from a stick of gum to small candy bars. Three items seem to stick in my craw that were favorite one cent items: Jawbreakers, Guess Whats and Baby Ruth candy bars. A Jawbreaker was just that, a jawbreaker. You could barely get it in your mouth. It had a hard outer core with a gum-like center. They would last quite a while as you positively could not bite into them. Maybe someone tried and broke their jaw, hence the name Jawbreaker.

Guess Whats were a piece of chewy candy and a small trinket or toy hidden in the wrap. The trinket was made in China or Japan and always seemed to vary. You never knew what you would unwrap and I can’t remember much about the candy, only that you would guess what you were going to unwrap in the Guess What.

Baby Ruth candy bars were a favorite of mine because Babe Ruth was every kid’s idol who knew anything about baseball or those like me who didn’t know a baseball from a kittenball. I think I was a teenager before I finally found out Baby Ruth candy bars were named after a baby girl named Ruth who was born to President Cleveland and his wife while they were living in the White House.

A penny by itself will not buy anything but I hope they are never discontinued. They fill a void that a lot of us remember as our formative years. We saved our pennies sometimes but more often ran to the nearest store and bought a jawbreaker, Guess What or Baby Ruth candy bar.

For nearly 25 years, until his death in 2015, retired grocer Don Behm wrote a column for The Storm Lake Times, “Cracker Barrel.” Don’s everyman view of everyday life was a favorite of Times readers. This was first published on March 8, 1995.