Gumball Anyone?

1971 was a notable year for many reasons: It was my first full year living in Pittsburgh (Mt. Lebanon actually), The 26th amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 (I was 6), Walt Disney World opened that October 1^st (we went a couple of years later), Lieutenant William Calley was found guilty in the My Lai Massacre and President Nixon vowed to end US involvement in Vietnam. Charles Manson was sentenced to death (we're still waiting, but the swastika he has since carved into his forehead has been a nice touch), All in the Family, and The Electric Company premiered on television, Muhammad Ali was cleared of draft dodging and soon after Joe Frazier beat Ali in 15 rounds - each received 3.5 million. Sadly, the San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 5 to 4 in the National League, but astronauts drove on the moon in a lunar buggy. A largely unknown company called Intel invented the 4004 microprocessor. Soft contact lenses (actually invented in 1962) received FDA approval. Soviet dissident Andrei Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize for literature. The Supreme Court upheld a measure to bus children in order to enforce integration in schools (which did not affect us at all). Idi Amin overthrew Ugandan president Milton Obote (ushering in all the fun that followed there). Joy To The World by Three Dog Night was the number one song of the year, and I listened by tuning in to KDKA and 13Q on my AM clock/radio. It was also during that hot summer, made happily endless by the skewed time-sense of the very young, that my love affair (an affair that continues to the present) with the common gumball machine began, during trips with my mother to the local Kroger.

The Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria is the first known inventor of a vending machine, and in 215 BC he invented a machine that dispensed holy water in Egyptian temples. The first commercial coin-operated vending machines were introduced in London in the early 1880s - they dispensed post cards. In 1888, the Thomas Adams Gum Company introduced the very first vending machines to the United States. These machines were installed on the elevated subway platforms in New York City and sold Tutti-Fruiti gum. In 1897, the Pulver Manufacturing Company added animated figures to it's gum machines as an added attraction. The round candy coated gumball and gumball (vending) machines that we know today were introduced in 1907. Vending machines soon offered everything including; cigars, postcards, stamps, etc. In Philadelphia, a completely coin-operated restaurant called Horn &Hardart was opened in 1902 and stayed opened until 1962 (damn! – I missed out on that one).

The grocery trips with mom were an exercise in minimalism. Money was tight and both parents were strong advocates of what was perceived as healthy eating at the time. Eggs and liver (we hadn't heard of cholesterol yet) were on the menu, but any kind of cereal that didn't taste like bark mulch or packing material was not on the menu. Soda was something that existed at other kids' houses not ours, but we could occasionally coax some Tang into the shopping cart because the astronauts drank it! Snacks consisted of bagged apples and bread & butter (purchased in economy sized tubs - tubs that were carefully washed, filled with left-overs and archived anonymously in the freezer). Mostly it was a voyeuristic experience, passing isles of brightly colored Hostess and Frito Lay products, as mom tsk-tsk'd and clicked her little red plastic tallying device that she used to stay within budget.

The payoff (if we were lucky and the budgetary limits had not been exceeded) came at the very end of the excursion when, after begging some coins from mom, we ran to the exit vestibule where eight or so vending machines were anchored in a two-tiered arrangement. Inside the glass globes were... possibilities... treasures... adventures perhaps. Jawbreakers, die cast jewelry, parachute guys, high-bouncing rubber balls, and GUMBALLS! The lower tier of machines consumed nickels and dimes, but the good stuff, the most coveted booty resided in the upper tier and cost a whole quarter - half the price of a gallon of gas at the time. We were relegated to the lower tier (and were grateful enough to get that) but I remember swearing solemn oaths that someday (when I was rich) I would buy all of those things that I didn't get when I was young.

Zach and Miranda seem to have developed the same fascination with these machines as I had so many years ago. Although there are no Krogers in Brooklyn, these ubiquitous devices appear in front of most delis (we know where to look). And although I don't let them buy the gumballs (mostly because I am afraid they will choke on them), we have great fun pointing to the exact prize we want, putting quarters in these machines (gas is now well over $3 per gallon), turning the handle, wondering why we didn't get what we pointed at, but hoarding our treasures anyway. Zach usually goes for a superball, while Miranda has been collecting the tiny trolls that come in the little plastic eggs produced in some factory in China. We have accumulated quite a trove!

I guess the lesson that I can take from this rumination, as I sit mired in economic insecurity, is the fact that I am truly rich today, by at least one measure, even if it is only the financial yardstick created by a six year old boy in 1971 western Pennsylvania. Hooray for me!