Aye, Aye, Cap'n Crunch

Whatever happened to Sugar Smacks?

When I was a child, my parents forbade sugar-coated breakfast cereals at home. My sisters and I would watch advertisements on TV for Lucky Charms, Coco Crispies, Frosted Flakes, and Sugar Smacks with watering mouths and tear-filled eyes. "Pleaaaase?" we begged at the supermarket, at Vons, or Ralph's, or Hughes. "Pretty please?"

The answer never varied. "No," my mother would say, not even pausing the cart as she tossed in Wheaties, Rice Krispies, and Cheerios (not Honey Nut).

In alternate years we got all dressed up and boarded an airplane to visit our grandparents on the East Coast, in Brooklyn and Baltimore. Grandma Dorothy, the Baltimore grandmother, always had a cupboard full of sugared cereals, including my very favourite: Cap'n Crunch. I adored her for remembering. It can't have been easy; she had nine grandchildren.  (On the non-breakfast-food front Grandma Dorothy was less than spectacular, serving us khaki-colored green beans from a long-opened tin, and dry chicken that she had apparently cooked the week or possibly month before. I don't recall her actually preparing any food at all, bar toast and cereal, during our visits.)

In spite of my childhood vows to myself not to repeat my parents' errors when I had my own kids, I too have forbidden sugary cereals at home. And proving that to everything there is a season, when I take the kids back to California to visit their grandparents-- aka my cereally-intransigent mother and father-- what do I find in the pantry, alongside the Cheerios, Rice Krispies, and granola? Lucky Charms and Coco Pops and, of course, Cap'n Crunch. During a week-long visit last month, I demolished an extra-large box of it. (The kids helped.)

Thanks, Mom and Dad. Home, very sweet home.