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Michael Henthorn
Sorry to be so late in weighing in on the bash. I've been busier than a cat scratchin' a litter box.
Fredricksburg was an absolute hoot! Princess and Kelly: Thanks so much for all you did to put the birthday party together. The food was great. The entertainment was off the hook and the fellowship was sweet and memorable. Char and Ka: Thanks for all you did to keep us in touch and to help facillitate the event. You are all awesome!
Donna commented on the way home that our class has an extraordinary amount of grace toward each other. We are free to be who we are as individuals and everyone just accepts each other for who they are. That has always been more important than what we have done or not done. That is the definition of unconditional love and our bunch exudes that. I am absolutely blessed to be a part of the class of 1969! Thanks for being so accepting of an old renegade. You are each truly special people in my life.
Now on to some continuing education. Because some in our group displayed their naivette by not knowing that C.W. Post not only founded Post, TX but was also the kingpin of the Post cereal empire (how could anyone possibly not know that Post Toasties were invented in Texas!!), I feel it my responsiblity to periodically update you on how important this man was to Texas history.
Some of you may not know that today is the birthday of Cheerios. Yes, another of our beloved breakfast staples turned 70 years old today (you skeptics can look it up on the internet (Ka)).
What most of you may not realize is that C.W. Post almost invented Cheerios. You may recall from our Fburg discussion that Post Toasties are a corn product, but Post also had vast fields of oats and wheat. C.W., being a highly creative man, felt that there was immense potential for an additional flavor to his burgeoning breakfast cereal empire. He came up with a fomula combining various spices with the wheat and oat flour and extruded the mixture into sticks. Failure after failure concerning how keep the "whoatstix" cereal on the spoon after you poured cream over it caused him to abondon the project. Besides the name pretty much sucked.
Post had an old friend who was a retired WWI General named Nathaniel Mills. General Mills asked Post if he could buy the formula from him for $100 in 1930. C.W. was frustrated with the project and agreed to sell the white paper to General Mills. With the help of several undocumented laborers, Mills was able to take the extruded mix and form it into little circles and viola! Cheerios was born! I'll explain in a later lesson how one of General Mills British war buddies helped him come up with the name. At any rate General Nathaniel Mills took what had been one of C.W. Post's few failures and on June 24th 1931 General Mills indroduced the world to Cheerios.
An interesting side note: General Mills had an idiot son-in-law named Matthew Tellamundo. He was not really an idiot, he was just immature. Anyway, Mathew like to carve little miniature cars and trucks. His father-in-law thought this was a frivilous waste of time so Matthew was constantly hiding his passion for this hobby from Mills. Mills startled him one day while he was carving (when he should have been rolling Cheerios) and caused him to spill a bunch of the toasted "O"s into an open can of shellac. By the time Matthew was able to sift the Cheerios out of the shellac, they had already begun to harden. Matthew took the hardened Cheerios and mounted them to one of his little toy cars and discovered that they made perfect little tires! Because he did not want his father-in-law to discover his new discovery, he kept his shellaced Cheerios in matchboxes with a shortened version of his name on the outside of the box so he would know which one held his stash. One afternoon, Matt's best friend Jimmy Tonka asked if he would show him some of those "hot little wheels". Matthew Tellamundo carefully reached for the matchbox marked "Mattel" and displayed the hot wheels to his best friend. Some of you may have figured out that this was the birth of another empire.....but that is another lesson for another writing. Perhaps I'll share it someday.
Some of these historical facts may cause some of you to doubt me, but if you don't believe what I have related to you (in a very brief summary I must add), just ask Gary Gruben. He knows as much about this stuff as I do and he will back me up....100%.
Be Blessed !!
Big Dad
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Aliece
