Breakfast Cereals

Although cold cereals had been around for decades, the sixties ushered in a whole new era of morning munch.  It was not enough for Post Cereals that children across the nation were enjoying their products that parents were buying.  The bright minds at Post (I'm not being sarcastic) decided to inundate us with even more breakfast-time images by creating a cartoon series featuring the mascots from some of our favourite cereals. The cartoon show, Linus the Lionhearted featured the title character as well as Sugar Bear (Sugar Crisp{now Golden Crisp}cereal), Loveable Truly (Alpha Bits) and others.
Imagine children sitting down to watch Saturday morning cartoons and being barraged with cartoon/commercials and cartoon-commercials.
After a few years , this ploy was declared illegal. It was court ordered that children's cartoon characters could not be featured in ads on the same show. They didn't even have to resort to using subliminal devices...wow. By the way, Loveable Truly was a mailman (Post Man).
The advertising never stopped. These Post mascots were okay (with voices done by big guns Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner, Ruth Buzzi, et al), but my favourite cereal reps were:
Cap'n Crunch
Toucan Sam
The Trix Rabbit ( I remember when he finally had the opportunity to eat some Trix)
Lucky, the Leprechaun
Tony the Tiger
Snap, Crackle and Pop...my two brothers and I  would assign ourselves to the respective roles of the various trios we would see on television.  For example, as the eldest, I was Simon; my brothers were Theodore and Alvin--the chipmunks. With the Three Stooges, I was Moe (let's face it, if you had to be one of them, wouldn't you rather be Moe?). So it went; and I was Snap while my brothers were Crackle and Pop. We memorized their individual theme songs also. Hey, cereals were serious fun.

I never ever liked Cheerios (and still won't eat any of its offshoots). The Cheerios Kid (is he still around?) was merely a Popeye wannabe.  That being said, there were many cereals I did enjoy. I liked Grape Nuts, Kix, Lucky Charms, Crispy Critters and Corn Flakes.  I also  recall eating Fruity Peebles, Quisp and Quake, Count Chocula, FrankenBerry, Apple Jacks, Sugar Smacks, Puffed Rice, Sugar Pops, All-Bran, Product 19, Honeycomb and Life. Life cereal had a very famous commercial featuring a little boy named Mikey.
I've had many debates over the years about the comments Mikey's brothers made (not for naught did I major in philosophy). Mikey's brothers were surprised that Mikey enjoyed  Life cereal because "he hates everything", not 'he eats everything'. Excuse my tirade.

The Delightful Dozen Cereals
12. Wheat Chex ...the other Chex cereals were mediocre at best
11. Shredded Wheat
10. Cocoa Krispies
 9.  Rice Krispies
 8.  Froot Loops
 7.  Special K (the cereal which prompted this list---with blueberries, no less)
 6.  Sugar Frosted Flakes (I can't say it as well as Tony the Tiger can, but you know they're great)
 5.  Trix
 4.  Raisin Bran...what a classic
 3. Cocoa Puffs (love that chocolate milk that's left in the bowl)
 2. Cap'n Crunch (especially with Crunchberries
    
my brother would eat the Cap'n Crunch part of the cereal, then he'd eat the Crunchberries, and finally he'd drink the milk: same  
routine each time    and now for my favourite cereal, the breakfast of champions...
 1. Wheaties  (I won a gift certificate for writing a Wheaties jingle in the 80s, but Wheaties have been number one since the sixties)

So long for now.
    

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Breakfast Cereals

I used to love breakfast. For years it was my favourite meal (before I knew that the experts deemed it the most important meal of the day).Eggs are still my #1 food, although I no longer consume them as if I were a madman. In my twenties and thirties, with some exceptions, I ate a dozen eggs daily. I cut back to six per day eventually and then...under doctor's orders, six per week.  On some occasions I would eat six eggs late Saturday night just before midnight and another six early Sunday just after midnight. So, technically I wasn't breaking the doctor's rule--I showed him.

In any case, I still enjoy my breakfast eggs from time to time (with pancakes and vegetarian sausage patties). I sometimes eat the boxed oatmeal in assorted flavours. It cannot compare to the breakfast grits my brothers and I had in the days of yesteryear. We ate our grits with sugar and butter (we ate our rice that way also...c'mon now, I'm sure we weren't the only ones...). There were plenty of hot breakfast foods from which to choose (Maypo, Malt-O-Meal, etc.). However, I would like to focus on the ever popular cold cereals.

Only recently I re-introduced myself to a.m. cereal and milk (soymilk). My favourite new cereal is Ezekiel 4:9. As you can probably guess, the ingredients are actually taken from the Old Testament recipe given in the book of Ezekiel. Just add milk and fruit, if you'd like, and you've got a real treat. But, how about the "good old cereals", most of which are still around?  My list this week will consist of The Delightful Dozen classic cereals (with some commentary of course).

30 Great Games

Many things bridge the so-called gaps between generations or genders or races. At or near the top of the list must be games.
Although I still love to play games, be they board games, online games or other sorts, the games I shall list here are those near and dear to many of us: the games we played as children.It seems as though the names of some of these games may change from one region to another. Sometimes we'd call the same game by a different name from one block to the next. Many games had multiple variations; but the common factor was fun. From babyhood (peek-a-boo) to adulthood (Life...pun intended), we enjoy the games people play.
The games on this list are basically free games. A ball will occasionally be necessary, but generally only the willingness of the participants is required. I did not include games which used toys such as marbles, jump rope, yo yo, etc (does anyone remember the spinning tops?) I also did not include pick up sticks, which amused me for hours, or jacks, which I'm sure were fun, but which I never played (sorry). Enough of what is not on the list...
30. London Bridge, one of many games of my era which involved a nursery rhyme or song. As a child I had no idea how many rhymes and fairy tales had their origins in gore and violence. Until the other day, I had never heard of Mary Mack Mack Mack (What? Where have you been? I don't know). I looked up this children's rhyme and discovered it to have a horrible ending. So much for PG.
29. Hopscotch, a game which I never played, but which I watched from time to time. There was a certain amount of skill involved besides just the hopping.
28. Telephone (sometimes called Gossip) We played this in school. The teacher would whisper a sentence to the first student who would in turn whisper it to the next student and so on. The fun was in seeing (hearing) how much the message was distorted in the end. There were no winners or losers in this game. It was just fun.
27. Monkey in the Middle ( a form of Keep Away), a game which was a lot of fun until I had to be in the middle.
26. Blackboard Artists, another classroom game. The teacher would send one student into the hall while one girl and one boy would come to the blackboard and draw a picture. The teacher would write a letter (A,B...) on the board for each artist. The student from the hallway would decide which drawing was best and either the girls' team or the boys' team would receive a point.Cordie Vickers and I were pretty good artists for our age, so we usually obtained points for the boys' team. Well, we would win until the girls recognized our styles and started voting for the worst drawing instead.(my first experience with unethical voting) Now, why is this game on my list?
25. Four Square, another game whereas you'd better know the neighborhood rules first (Hey, we don't play double bounce here)
24. Six Tappers...I'm back in school again. The teacher would pick six children (volunteers) to come to the front of the class. The rest of the class would have to put their heads down (cross your arms on the desk and rest your heads, close your eyes and no peeking). The tappers would walk around and tap one person each. The object was to guess who tapped you. Many students tapped whomever was the object of this month's crush...a chance to touch him or her. A correct guess made you a tapper next.
23. Musical Chairs when the music stops...sometimes bedlam (musical statues was similar)
22. Mr.Fox (or Mr.Clock or Mother, May I?), a call/response game involving a group approaching an individual who allows the oncomers to "sneak up"
21. Memory Game. This was one of many word games played especially in cars (remember I Spy?the game, not the television show) I went to the store and bought an apple. I went to the store and bought an apple and some bread...you see the alphabetical pattern with each turn carrying more baggage. The zoo was just as good as the store. At the zoo I saw an aardvark...and so on to zebra.
20. Follow the Leader, a game whose fun and excitement depends in large part on the leader. I took my team on rooftops and through unknown backyards. Oh yes, we had fun.
19. Dodge Ball, the Friday afternoon gym class highlight of the week. I loved this game.
18. Cops and Robbers, one of many "pretend" games in we delighted as youths. As kids we had no idea that some  cops were really...never mind.
17. Cowboys ,another type of pretending which was nearly endless fun. A friend of mine recently told me that his entire neighborhood "sympathized with the Indians every time." He went on to say, "we all liked Tonto. Nobody liked the Lone Ranger;and this was a white neighborhood!" When we didn't have cap guns we'd just use our fingers. Our imaginations had no limits.
16.Charades, a game which is fun for young and old. If you are fortunate enough to get a 'like thinking' partner, then you are most likely in victory lane.
15. School ...yes, we pretended to be at school when we were at home--go figure. Other pretend games were House or Occupations, which included anything adults might be.We loved to play adults (known then as grown ups). Little did we know that the child's life was the dream life.
14. Running Bases, a sidewalk game of running, throwing and bluffing. I was Rickey Henderson before Rickey Henderson was Rickey Henderson.
13. Put Back, a game usually played with a baseball, in which one team would throw the ball as far as possible to put the other team 'back'. If the ball was not caught, the non-throwing team would pick up the ball and throw it from where it landed. Catching the ball would give a receiving team the advantage of getting three giant steps(remember giant steps and baby steps?) before throwing the ball back. We'd play in the alley with the cross streets being the victory boundaries.
12. The GHOST Game, a spelling game in which each player follows the previous player's letter with another letter until a word is spelled or challenged. The trick is to force your opponent to spell the word...a sort of Scrabble in reverse without the board.
11. Simon Says, a classic we still played as late as a few years ago. No matter how well you know that you ONLY do what Simon Says, you still get tripped up. Well, I still get tripped up.
Can you guess some of the top ten games (you see, I'll even make a game out of a games list)? No, Pin the tail is not on the list. Neither is Leap Frog, although that was great exercise.Alright...
10. Hide and Seek, We played Hide and Seek, not that R-rated variation which I hear people discuss sometimes. I wonder if that's just another urban legend. I was a child until I wasn't, doggone it (pretty much a necessary truth, wouldn't you say?). In any case, this game is an all time classic.
9. Slaps, a hand slapping game which involved speed and sometimes pain. We didn't seem to mind pain very much as long as some fun was had. We played Thumps( or Knuckles) and even Shoulders, where we would just hit each other in the arm (Greg Miley hit me so hard once that my arm hurt for two days)
8. Rock School, You sit on the bottom step and advance to the next step by guessing which hand holds the rock or stone. Plain...simple...fun
7. Presidents/History, We pretended to be U.S Presidents. That's basically it. My brothers and I would act out scenes from U.S. History with emphasis on the presidents. It helped that we knew all of the Commanders-in-Chief when we were in elementary school. Don't be surprised if this game doesn't experience a rebirth. (Can anybody say," Obama" ?)
6. Cars, I truly thought that I had made up this game until I later discovered how many people had played such similar games. Our variation was to sit on the porch and count the cars which went by. If the car goes east, that's my point. If it goes west, that's your point. We pre-determine how many points will win...50,100...Hey, it's cheaper than buying a video racing game.
5. War, or any variation of battle games from outside fortresses made from boxes to King of the Hill type attack/defence games. We played war games with toy soldiers, with baseball and football cards and rubber bands and in the wintertime with snowballs. That good packin' snow was "the bomb".
4. Scissors Cut Paper, now called Rock Paper Scissors (or Roshambo); same game still fun
3. Twenty Questions, We would give each other a set of initials and proceed to ask and answer yes and no questions to ascertain the person's name (never animal or mineral). The person could be dead or alive, factual or fictional. We became so adept at this game that we would no longer give initials for names, but initials for syllables. For example, W.L might be Wes Leysnipes. It sounds way out and yet we'd get the answers.
2. Catch, Can it get any simpler? "Let's play catch" "Okay" No time clock; no losers..we all won.
1. TAG, So many variations from frozen tag to helper's tag to eraser tag in school to Olly Olly Oxen Free to Duck Duck Goose to Capture the Flag...
How many games gave you a prelude which itself was so much fun. "Put your feet in--I'm saying it...I struck a match and it went out or my mother and your mother were hanging up clothes, my mother hit your mother in the nose. What colour was the blood? Red. R-E-D spells red and you are not it...and so forth (don't ask why the mothers were battling at the clothesline). I'm telling you, we had fun just looking forward to the fun were we going to have.
So long for now

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