Dear Hershey Company: in Daydreaming on the Porch

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for something splendid and delicious you and your founder, Milton S. Hershey, gave us anlmost 125 years ago — the Hershey bar.

Now I know some people might say this is a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but to me it is not. Eating a Hershey bar is one of those indescribable pleasures in life that satisfy the taste buds exquisitely, if you happen to love chocolate as I do. But of course, it is much more than that.

In a world seemingly gone mad with the craziness and incomprehensibility of it all, it is comforting to know there are some things that never change, which offer small moments of comfort and pleasure and enable familiar rituals we have known since childhood.

The very name “Hershey” evokes strong memories for me. Memories of opening the gold foil on a candy bar and tasting that sweet confection. Or, going to the dime store in he late 1950s and getting chunks of chocolate from a glass display case amid the multi-colored sections of “penny candy” and other delights. They don’t have those anymore.

Chocolate is a comfort food to me, and a Hershey bar is, plain and simply, the most satisfying of all. I’ve had the cheaper chocolates, and they are good in their own way, and I have had the Godiva chocolates , every variety of Giradelli bar (raspberry cream is my favorite), and indulged in Belgian chocolate assortments in beautifully shaped and designed boxes, arranged cleverly to be unbearably tempting as you try to figure out which one to eat without knowing if it’s cream, caramel, solid or some other filling.

Lately I confess I’ve indulged in that very fine pricey chocolate truffle collection from Lewis Sherry. It’s all good, some of it exquisitely mouth watering, but when everything is said and done, they don’t satisfy like a Hershey bar. I say this from the hearty and with a bit of guilt that I haven’t yet eaten the Hershey bar I have in my kitchen.

However, I can simply think about eating one and I know exactly what it tasted like the last time. I can’t do they with Godiva chocolates and all the rest of them, as much as they might claim ancestry with the chocolate nectar of the gods!

I’ve had Almond Mounds, Milky Ways, Three Musketeers and Snickers candy bars. All good, too. But I don’t revere them and associate chocolate with one word only — “Hershey.”

A true American icon is what Mr. Milton Hershey gave us. As I reclined in my chair the other night and savored little squares of chocolate from my Hershey bar, I sat back with a contented smile. The news went unread. The day’s troubles went away.

Hershey Company, in your own way, you have made the world a better place. Thank you!

Hershey bar

https://imgur.com/a/djRtM98

Original Hershey bar, 1900

https://imgur.com/a/8d7d4e5

Milton S. Hershey, From Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_S._Hershey

Last updated November 02, 2023