The late 1950s and the early 1960s were times of very limited food innovation. This was most likely due to the meager supply of resources available. We weren’t exactly in our culinary heyday, especially in rural Ohio.

You could barely find a pizza, for instance, and when you could, it was sold at a “pizza parlor.” No Domino’s, no Caesar’s, no Papa Murphy’s Take & Bake. The pizza parlors were well named because what few existed were about the size of your old-fashioned parlor at home, and mostly, you bought the pizza by the slice. Never an entire pie. In my hometown of Perrysburg, Ohio, known at the time to be a culinary wasteland, the pizzas were a strange concoction of bread dough, cheese, tomatoes, peculiar, unidentifiable spices and sometimes eggs. No one had yet heard of pepperoni.

To break up the average bland diet, there were places called “Soda Fountains.” They were often located in drugstores and contained a long counter lined with tall stools, whose seats were covered with brightly colored plastic. When you sat on a stool, you faced an array of large machines that dispensed pretty much whatever you wanted. In those days, what you wanted might be a lime phosphate (also known as A Green River); other flavors were cherry, chocolate and, my favorite, vanilla. At the time, phosphates were a popular choice. Now, most people don’t even know what they are. For those too young to remember, phosphates consist of carbonated water, flavored syrup and phosphoric acid. Drinking one made your nostrils tingle. I often wonder how something so unique and delicious could fade away.

Everything at the counter was prepared to order by a soda jerk. A soda jerk was generally an acne-enhanced teenager who worked behind the counter jerking the large draft arms that dispensed the phosphate. He also made ice cream sodas, malts and brown cows (root beer floats with ice cream). When he wasn’t jerking the levers, he was creating hot fudge sundaes and humongous banana splits. If you were nice to him, you got extra.

Let’s talk about bubble gum, shall we? It’s not exactly a food source, but you do chew it, it does have flavor and when you’re a kid, you sometimes swallow it. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, bubble gum came in wrappers that also contained baseball trading cards. During those mid-century years, my husband, Stiles, and his brother, Doug, ages 12 and 10 respectively, developed a habit of collecting both cards and chewing gum. The boys were avid traders, but were always careful to squirrel away the cream of the crop. Along with many other standouts, their carefully curated collection contained a Mickey Mantle rookie card from the year 1951.

Time passed, as it tends to do, and Stiles and his brother left home for college. As their mother was sorting through the things they left behind, she came across their baseball cards. She immediately thought of her neighbor’s young son, who was a huge baseball fan, so she decided to gift him with the collection. After all, the boys were gone, and the cards were taking up space.

Many years later, the little boy grew up, married and eventually got divorced. His baseball collection was deemed valuable enough to be included in the divorce settlement and was awarded to his wife. At this moment in time, the Mickey Mantle rookie card is worth half a million dollars. The collection also contained a Whitey Ford card worth $4,800, as well as many others whose values we were afraid to look up.

So, you might ask, has my husband forgiven his mother? Not sure. Maybe not. She remained unapologetic ever after. In her eyes, she was just being a nice neighbor.

A little while ago, we were discussing flavors, and I must tell you that bubble gum is a flavor my husband has not particularly liked since the fateful day his baseball cards were given away. This is too bad, because bubble gum is the only thing he has left!

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