I received another birthday box of Twinkies this year. It was my 17th annual birthday box of Twinkies.
Twinkies have been around for a long time. The yellow crème-filled confection first arrived in stores in 1933, during the Great Depression. And yes, I looked that up. (I sometimes spend minutes of research time on this column, just because I care.)
I should note here that I’m not what you’d call a huge Twinkie fan. I like them well enough, but in my house there are usually better choices around at snack time. I live with a couple of bakers and that means there is plenty of the real thing available when it comes to baked goods.
This is none of my doing, of course, but the bakers are generally generous with their confectionary creations. In fact, at times there will be too much of a good thing. That allows for a certain amount of snacker discretion; a Twinkie doesn’t stand a chance against a homemade cream cheese-filled carrot cake cupcake.
That’s why the box of Twinkies has remained unopened, almost a week after its arrival. It’s OK though, the Twinkies will keep. Some people believe they will last forever, but the reality is closer to 25 days. I’ll probably give them to my friend Ilana. She is a true lover of the tubular treats.
You might wonder then, why someone would, almost religiously, send this birthday box of Twinkies every year and what this has to do with anything … or not. But if you’re still reading this, I’ll just assume that you think it does.
My Twinkie tale began on Oct. 30, 1994, on Page A6 of the Sunday edition of the Columbia Daily Tribune.
It was the first ever daily newspaper in Howard County. It lasted all of three months.
It was doomed from the start. The paper was started on a wing and prayer, but very little cash, by a colorful character named Ed Pickett. Ed had suddenly appeared on the scene a year or two earlier and started a monthly business paper for Howard County on barter and promises. In a short period of time, it became a success.
In 1994, his ex-wife took over the paper (that’s a whole other column) and then he simply figured he’d double down. He reasoned Columbia, which then had a population of around 80,000, could support a daily paper.
He reasoned wrong. It was an interesting three months, though, and I played a minor role in its saga. I had started writing for Ed with the very first issue of The Business Monthly and he asked me to come along on the new adventure, too. He told me I could write about anything I wanted to, and every Sunday the paper carried my column. Some of my work was good; some not so much.
One Sunday, the topic was Twinkies.
The Twinkie inspiration came from a story in the Washington Post the previous week about a research study, conducted by Claritas Inc., tracking nationwide grocery shopping habits. The market research firm collected and analyzed data from millions of people all across the country to try and determine who eats what, and where.
One of the findings was that people in the Baltimore/Washington area were among the lowest consumers of Twinkies in the country.
Seriously.
I found that mildly interesting, and reading it reminded me of when I shared a house with three other guys in our senior year of college. We agreed at the outset to chip in 15 bucks apiece each week for food. The actual shopping duty rotated among the four of us, and whoever did the shopping was allowed complete discretion of what to purchase beyond the essentials of bread, milk, eggs and Twinkies. That’s right, Twinkies. Don’t ask me why, but that’s what it was.
In the late ’70s, Twinkies came 12 to a box, so each man got three. Inevitably, every other week or so, someone would come up short. Later, some of us took to hiding our Twinkies.
I combined that little story with the Claritas Twinkie research into a column, made my deadline and promptly forgot about it.
My sister Pat didn’t forget about it, though. She liked the Twinkie column so much that the following year, on my birthday, she sent me a box of Twinkies, complete with a box of cake candles. She’s repeated this ritual now for 17 years.
And to think I sort of owe it all to Ed Pickett. It’s also the only compensation I ever received from writing for the Columbia Daily Tribune. Subconsciously at least, I wasn’t in it for the money. I was in it for the Twinkies.
Sadly, it may now all be coming to an end. Last month, Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies, sought protection in bankruptcy court. They’ve become an early casualty in the war against obesity where the likes of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and HoHo’s are seen as the enemy.
No one has ever mistaken a Twinkie for being healthy. But that’s never what they were about.
Dennis Lane co-hosts “and then there’s tha t…,” a biweekly local news podcast on hocomojo.com, and blogs about stuff around here at wordbones.com.
