by It’s funny how some things can just pop into your head that you haven’t thought about in many years. This is one of those things.
Peanut butter is a staple in most American homes. You can find it in cabinets, in lunch boxes, and in lunch pails all across this great country. It’s patriotic….right behind apple pie. And you know what else is patriotic? Superman by gosh! If you slap Superman’s name and image on a jar of peanut butter, you have the ultimate weapon against communism.
At least that’s what a lot of us kids growing up in the ’80s in the rural area I lived in thought anyway. We’d spend a lot of our time at recess after lunch playing Superman vs The Russians on the school playground. No joke. We had our bellies full of Superman peanut butter and were battling the red menace to keep our playgrounds safe…just like in Red Dawn. It was serious business. I even started a super-secret spy club in school to help combat the threat that we were exposed to on the news every night. But I digress.
Anyway, I’m not sure Superman peanut butter tasted any better than Skippy, Peter Pan, or Jif. Actually, from what I’ve read online, Superman may have even been a cheaper variety than those others listed. No matter the cost, that brand of peanut butter with Superman on the label is what I still identify as the epitome of peanut butter from my childhood.
As a sidebar, I can explicitly remember one distinct point in time when I was eating Superman peanut butter. It was January 28, 1986. We were out of school that day due to snow. I was sitting on the floor of our basement where I usually played, with a Superman peanut butter sandwich in front of me as I watched the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was one of those moments where you always remember where you were and what you were doing….and I had Superman peanut butter to make me feel a little better as I watched those events unfold.
And that’s the way it was,
Mick
