There are the old commercials which used to run on TV…. showing a chocolate truck driving down the road, and then… . a peanut butter truck coming from the opposite direction…. fade to black… and KAPOW…. the two trucks have crashed into one another.
Peanut Butter. Chocolate. Ah… the Birth of the Reese Cup.
The commercials, which ran at that time, gave several other scenarios, in which these two delectables would be merged.
But I am here to give you the cold hard truth. Because today is H.B. Reese’s Birthday. He was born unto this earth in 1879…. in York County, Pennsylvania on an dairy farm. The H. B. stands for Harry Burnett.
At any rate, he invented the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in 1928. And the world turned on its side.
I’m not sure what he did for the first 38 years of his life. But what better place to move than Hershey, Pennsylvania, and he did just that in 1917. Apparently, he worked on a dairy farm owned by The Hershey Company until the farm was closed by Hershey’s. I guess he was fairly prosperous in this endeavor. And… I’m guessing he picked up a few things while he worked there. Besides milk buckets.
Anyways, H.B. was a bit of an entrepreneur. So, after his job on the Hershey Farm, he got inspired…. somehow. Reese began experimenting with candies in his basement. Something tells me that his wife would not let him use the kitchen.
So… down there in the basement, next to the coal furnace…. he created the H. B. Reese Candy Company. … around 1923. The company really took off, because by 1926…. he had built a new home and factory for his growing business. H.B. widened his dreams, and he sold a tremendous variety of candies.
Not only did he like creating candy, he liked creating babies too. By 1928, H. B. and his wife (Blanche Edna Hyson) had sixteen children. That’s WAY more than a baker’s dozen.
That same year, H. B. Reese invented Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
During World War II, he had to let go of his other candy lines. The war brought on a lot of economic constraints, and many materials were scarce. So he concentrated solely on his peanut butter cups, his most popular offering.
And it served him well. And some of us too.
But here is the thing, that just hit me. That Peanut Butter. That Chocolate. Two great things in their own right. But bring them together and they are like magic.
People can be like that too. Any of us who are married, and so very much in love, know this. Or those of us who have a best pal, a bosom buddy, a sidekick. By ourselves, we are pretty okay. But when we are together with our “other,” we are great combination.
Like Peanut Butter & Jelly.
I mean…. Chocolate.
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“Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone’s hand is the beginning of a journey. At other times, it is allowing another to take yours.”
― Vera Nazarian
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“If you watch a scary movie together, then the scariness is cut in half!”
― Hidekaz Himaruya, Hetalia: Axis Powers, Vol. 2
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“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”
― Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies
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