I first became acquainted with jelly beans more than 80 years ago from a grocer in Brentwood, Missouri who served our family. His name was John Gualdoni, who kept a store where all of the merchandise was stacked on counters behind clerks’ heads. As each item was purchased, it was put on a counter in front of the patron. When all of the merchandise was in front of the clerk, he would put the totals near each other on a brown paper bag and then add them. This was in the days before there were such things as computers or adding machines.
I came to learn that Mr. Gualdoni kept two large jars, one of which contained jaw breakers and the other one contained jelly beans. Those were essentially the deserts that Mr. Gualdoni had to offer. And so it was that I began my love affair with jelly beans a long time ago.
A year or so ago, our drug store began to carry a line of jelly beans called Jelly Belly Beans. They are delicious and I give credit to the jelly bean industry. Shortly thereafter, a Whole Foods opened a large store in our neighborhood and provided jelly beans called “Jolly Beans.” Jolly Beans are not as delicious as Jelly Belly Beans but I find both of them very pleasant. Whole Foods concentrates on serving organic products. I have no idea whether Jolly Beans are an organic product, but they taste quite well and I am not interested in finding out whether they are organic or not.
In looking up the history of jelly beans, we are told by Mr. Google that their history goes back to biblical times where they were originally called “Turkish Delights.” I am forced to conclude that any product that has satisfied the taste buds of consumers for more than 2,000 years must be meritorious in all respects. If they have any deficiencies, I am unaware of them, and after 80 years of eating jelly beans, it is my intention not to stop at this point. I hope to be eating jelly beans when the undertaker comes to carry me away.
Now we turn to a totally unrelated subject. That is blue jeans, which have no relation whatsoever to jelly beans. While my love affair with jelly beans goes back to the mid 1920s, I came lately to the wearing of blue jeans. Perhaps it was a prejudice, in that I saw teenagers who had deliberately torn the knees of their blue jeans apart to expose that part of their bodies, which maybe was a sex symbol to other teenagers. For all the years that I worked around the house and cut the grass and climbed on the roof, I tended to wear what were known as “work pants” or old khakis. Then about ten years ago, my wife produced a pair of blue jeans which she had bought over the internet. In the years since that purchase, I have found that blue jeans are a very useful accessory to be worn when doing chores around the house. But they have a drawback or two that must be accounted for.
In the first place, blue jeans have no button or zipper on the rear pockets. Men usually place their wallets in their left rear pockets. When this is done, absent a button or a zipper to give them a permanence to that location, it is an open invitation for pickpockets to lift the wallet. It is for this reason that when I go to the grocery store I must use a shirt with a pocket in it to hold my wallet so that if I meet a pick pocket he will not be rewarded.
Blue jeans are cut in a fashion that requires the front pockets to be entered from the top rather than, as in regular trousers, from the side. In an ordinary pair of pants, change and bills can be retrieved from the front pockets even while seated. However when blue jeans are worn, it is necessary for the wearer to stand up while he retrieves bills and change from his front pockets.
These are minor inconveniences because blue jeans provide the wearer with long service. They are made of cotton which does not necessarily provide much warmth but their thickness seems to give comfort to those of us who wear them now and then.
Well, there you have my thoughts about jelly beans and blue jeans, which is a relief from thinking about what is happening in the stock market and the antics of politicians who are vying to provide us with buyouts, bailouts, and/or rescue packages. As in the case of jelly beans, which I said I would like to be eating until I am taken away by Ippolito, the undertaker, I hope that when that occasion happens he might find me in my well-worn blue jeans. Blue jeans may not be the best trousers in the world, but until something better comes along, I must say that blue jeans fill the bill quite adequately. I know that an essay about jelly beans and blue jeans will not alter the course of the world, but from time to time it is pleasant to think of the mundane in place of cosmic things.
E. E. CARR
December 7, 2008
Essay 353
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Kevin’s commentary: Growing up both a) in the nineties and b) in Austin meant that unless I was wearing shorts, I was pretty much expected to be wearing blue jeans all the time. They were simply the default pants for kids in the 90s. I mention that I grew up in Austin because it is famous for being “low key” — you can wear blue jeans out to almost any restaurant, for instance, and nobody is going to be upset with you for not wearing sufficiently fancy clothing.
The only job I’ve ever had where blue jeans were not permitted in the office lasted only ten weeks. While the dress code wasn’t the reason I left, it was one of the earliest warning signs.