DAY OLD BREAD

My father, my brothers Bode and Gary and my husband Gerald all worked at Pennington Bread. The attached poem was in my father's wallet.

In the days before the Bakery Thrift Store, employees could take home day-old merchandise. To this day I do not like FRESH bread because I was accustomed to day-old bread. I find fresh bread to be doughy and just too yeasty. We could never consume all that he brought home so our rabbits and chickens were fattened with DAYS-old bread and pastries. One time Mother looked out the door and saw our pet raccoon RACKY washing a sweet roll! Every once in awhile I will see banana flips and have a yen for one but they actually taste terrible!

Pennington's produced Blue Bird Pies which were sold in restaurants. The pans were recycled and the salesmen were responsible for returning the pie pans. The pie pans are 8-inch heavy aluminum pans. When Blue Bird Pies were discontinued, my father brought home a box of pie pans. These are still the best pie pans and the only ones I use for pies to eat at home.

Several years ago, I was at Caesar's Creek Flea Market and a vendor was telling a woman that the Blue Bird pie pan she was looking at was "at least 90 years old." I interjected, "But how do you know that?" He said, "Because I know when the Company was in business." I said, "But that particular pan is from the 1950's." The woman asked, "How do YOU know?" I explained that my father had worked at Pennington's and that particular pan was new when I was a kid and that I had several different designs of pans I inherited. He had a price of $15.00 on the pan. I said to her, "Call me and I'll sell you a better one for a dollar!" The vendor said that he was going to call Security and that he wanted me to leave his area. I said, "Yeah, tell them to come over here and I'll report you for fraud!"

Of course, I was kidding about selling the pan because I would never part with any of mine.

A MAN LIVED BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

... and sold hot dogs.
He was hard of hearing, so he had no radio.
He had trouble with his eyes, so he had no newspaper.

But he sold good hot dogs.

He put up a sign on the highway, telling how good they were.

He stood by the side of the road and cried, "Buy a hot dog, mister." And people bought.

He increased his meat and bun orders and he bought a bigger stove to take care of his trade.

He got his son home from college to help him. But then something happened.

His son said, "Father, haven't you been listening to the radio? There's a big depression on. The International situation is terrible, and the Domestic situation is even worse."

Whereupon, the father thought, "Well, my son has been to college.

He listens to the radio and reads the papers, so he ought to know."

So the father cut down his bun order, took down his advertising signs, and no longer bothered to stand on the highway to sell hot dogs.

His hot dog sales fell almost over night.

"You were right, son," the father said to the boy, "We are certainly in the middle of a great depression."

---Watson Publications.

P.S. Business IS good...ask any Pennington Bread Salesman.