With several hundred kids in the building. the venial sin of chewing gum ran wild. Here they come, the army of uncontrolled middle-class teens chewing gum. Stay in your homes until you hear the siren.
Chewing gum TV ads were everywhere. Double Mint, Beech Nut’s Yipes Stripes, Clark’s Teaberry, Big Red, and the old standby Chicklets.
Mom was a Beech Nut fan going way back, but she also chewed Wrigley’s (“Hi Ho Hey Hey, Chew your little troubles away”).
I soon found out those flavors were for girls. Boys chewed Bubble Gum; specifically, Bazooka Joe.
It used to cost 1 cent, later 2 cents. I was never good at blowing bubbles, the old man actually told me how. The bubble gum they gave you with baseball cards was awful–pink cardboard hard as asphalt. BJoe came in a little quarter-sized chunk, and was usually pretty malleable.
In junior high, guys chewed openly in class whenever a teacher turned their back. A few girls did as well. Popping gum was pretty daring, cause that was just like an open FU to the teacher. But that could backfire and we all had to write 50 times, or listen to a boring speech about maturity.
The real daring was blowing the bubble while the back was turned; and getting it back in your moth silently, Girls, being more dainty, figured that one out quickly. I have a memory of a girl named Cathy being really skilled. But if you got a big one, you had to abort takeoff and grab the bubble with your hand. Suckers like were car bombs when they popped.
So I surfed below the high risk boys, blowing small to medium sized bubbles, and quickly pulling everything back. I always kept focused on the teacher; too many hot-shit guys blew their bubble, then looked around to see if everyone saw it. They were too stupid to realize you needed that extra second as the teacher was turning around.
Any fool who kept too much gum in their mouth was inevitably caught when they were called on. Down you go to see the Foon, take the humiliation and try to look cool.
Class over, It was proper etiquette to leave the chunk under the desk. It was also a legal requirement to deposit gum under a lunchroom table. In high school, I worked summers back at the Junior High as a janitor. One time, we counted 75 gum wads under one lunchroom bench.
Remember, kids, always follow Uncle Bob’s advice: