Over coffee one morning with Wayne Richards, he mentioned that he and Wheaties were both born the same year — in 1926. So he has been somewhat of a Wheaties fan most of his life, not just because of the same birthday, but because he liked them as a kid and still does.
This brought up the subject of what we used to have for breakfast back in the olden days when we were kids. Most of those at the table remembered cooked cereal, which was prepared on the stove, not just poured out of the box.
How well I remember our standard “Bill of Fare” 365 days a year when I was a boy. It was Quaker rolled oats out of the big, colorful, round box, or sometimes Cream of Wheat for a change of pace. Both were pretty tasty, hot from the pan with fresh milk and sugar. But they became rather lumpy if we didn’t make it to the table in time. We also had toast made from thick slices of homemade bread, pierced with a fork and held over the open fire in the kitchen range until it browned on both sides. Add fresh butter and homemade preserves — it truly was finger lickin’ good!
On weekends when there was more time, we would have pancakes with butter and sorghum or somewhat of a thin sugar and water homemade syrup that was cooked over the stove. Of course, we always had plenty of eggs for a weekend breakfast feast with homemade sausage that was layered in pure lard from a big, round crock in the pantry. We also might have had thick slices of tasty salted-down ham taken from a big wooden barrel stored out in our wash house. Maybe we also would have a nice dish of home canned peaches, plums or pears taken from half-gallon jars stored away in our big cave behind the house. Those Saturday and Sunday morning breakfasts on the farm were memorable. But during school days, it was primarily oatmeal and milk.
Then, in the fall of 1943, Dad started working at the Army Ordnance Plant in Ankeny along with doing his farming. This meant some extra money in the purse for occasional frivolous things such as dry cereal, namely Wheaties or Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. The older kids seemed to prefer Corn Flakes, but brother Jim and I always put in our bid for Wheaties for a good and sufficient reason. It was primarily for the box tops, not necessarily for the contents. But we never told Mom and Dad.
For several years during World War II you could send in Wheaties box tops with 10 cents and get a colorful cardboard airplane ready to cut out and form into a 3-D prize trophy. All kinds of American planes were available, from the Hell Cat to a P-40. There were lots of enemy planes too, from the German Fokker to the Japanese Zero. You pasted a penny on the nose for proper weight, and they would fly ever so nicely outside our upstairs bedroom window. We had dozens of them hung on thread from the ceiling. Of course, we kept on eating those Wheaties, which was the main sponsor of “Jack Armstrong — That All-American Boy” on the radio each night at 5:30 p.m.
Fast forward to modern times. Tom’s favorite dry cereal was Captain Crunch, while David’s was Corn Pops. Mike’s also was Captain Crunch, which as a little tyke he called “Krappin Kwutz.” Josh preferred anything with a chocolate flavor, from Count Chocula to Cocoa Pebbles. He and Mike were known as “the cereal kids” and might be munching on something out of those boxes morning, noon or night.
But for some reason they were never too fond of Wheaties. Perhaps that was because, in their day, you couldn’t send away for those great paper airplanes.