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I
enjoy writing a column but you don’t get out in the field much.
A lot
of folks are fuzzy on the difference between a reporter and a columnist.
Reporters are sleuths. The good ones can sniff out a story, check the facts,
write them up objectively, and still make it interesting. They spend hours on
the phone or in the streets, interviewing, researching, verifying, and nailing
down loose ends.
Columnists, on the
other hand, need only a chair, a computer, and an opinion. The good ones get
their facts straight, but generally do little original research. Reporting is
work; columning is fun and you get to make up your own words.
Yet once in a rare
while I get the urge to go beyond the usual fanny work and really get into a
story; a recent study published in the British Medical Journal is just such an
occasion. Based on an examination of tobacco industry records by the University
of Rochester School of Medicine in New York, the research concludes that tobacco
companies have ignored trademark violations and openly allowed confectioners to
use cigarette packaging designs in hopes of enticing kids to smoke.
Candy makers were
apparently in on the scheme, concealing research showing that kiddie candy
addicts are more likely to use the real stuff. In accordance with American
custom, the researchers have called for a ban on the sweets.
I don’t doubt we
can be influenced by childhood modeling, which is why we don’t let our kids
watch “Malcolm In The Middle.” But is legislation banning certain candy shapes
the answer? Do other evils lurk within America’s sweet shops? And when candy
is outlawed, will only outlaws have candy?
To find the
answers, I left behind my cozy columnist’s seat and took on the mission of a
reporter. Gathering my courage, I drove south to the McDevitt’s Real Penny
Candy store in Live Oak, a red and white striped must-see for anyone travelling
that stretch of Highway 99 with children.
Even a
reporter-for-a-day must maintain his objectivity, so I spent my entire annual
research budget of $8.62 rather than ask for freebies. Worth every cent if I
can save just one child. I found that it doesn’t stop with ersatz tobacco,
though there is plenty of that. I bought two packs of candy cigarettes, one
with a picture of dinosaurs on it in case you missed the “Far Side” cartoon on
how they became extinct. I also picked up a licorice pipe (which comes in black
or red) and a pink bubble gum cigar wrapped in cellophane with the words “It’s A
Girl.” This is a wicked twofer, encouraging both smoking and early parenthood.
Vanity
too may have its origin on the candy shelf. My haul included a sweets-filled
watch, confectionery lipstick, and a “Ring Pop” of sufficient karat weight to
make Zsa Zsa Gabor swoon. Most baffling was a candy bracelet embossed with a
picture of Olive Oyl, who might as well be Martha Washington to tots born after
1965.
There
is also gold fever at McDevitt’s as evidenced by a couple of childhood favorites
of mine, gold nugget bubble gum and chocolate gold coins. This could well be
how Donald Trump got his start.
As if
sweets aren’t nutritionally void enough, children can also be patterned for a
lifetime of cholesterol consumption by bubble gum “Doggie Man” hot dogs, “Bubble
Peanuts, ” and a plastic egg filled with mystery goodies. Might as well sell
candy lard.
I have
no clue what the idea is behind a sucker called “Lippy Licks,” a Gene Simmons-esque
tongue pierced with a metallic stud and forked at the end. The “Candy Caller,”
however, is the clear doing of a conspiracy between confectioners and the cell
phone industry to cause car wrecks and brain cancer.
But
above all, mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be writers; keep ‘em away
from “Scribblets,” a pencil-shaped candy holder that really writes. Otherwise
they might grow up to tell folks they should be left to make most decisions for
their children themselves.
© 1997 – 2002 Brent Morrison
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