culture

Peanuts was a beloved comic strip created by Charles Schulz.  Children and adults alike would wait for the paper to see what Charlie Brown and his friends would do next.

In the 1960's they were adapted for television.  The broadcast of Charlie Brown's Christmas special became a tradition.

In this story, Charlie Brown and his friends seek the true meaning of Christmas in the production of a school pageant, decorating a tree, and the selection of Christmas music.  Eventually Linus sorts it out and explains the true meaning of Christmas.

"Remember eating a bagel?"

That's how this story starts.  But it takes a surprising turn when you realize that this is the story of how the authentic bagel, the one we remember from our childhood, has vanished.  Or has it?

Enjoy the NPR audio recording from 1997 of Daniel Pinkwater.  It's only 3 minutes long and very amusing.

In this commercial, Chef Ettore Boiardi (aka Boyardee) makes a direct appeal to the American consumer to try his spaghetti and sauce, a healthy, inexpensive and exciting "new" product.  If they couldn't find it on the shelves (and it WAS hard to find in the 1950's) he suggests that they "ask their grocer."  He was an innovative and successful entrepreneur in his day.

This is a story about different kinds of choices we make in life, some of them being more consequential than others.  Some choices are primarily a matter of taste.  Others may be more connected with where we grow up, community and identity.  And others are more personal.

Robert Frost narrates two stanzas from his poem, "The Road Not Taken", a classic poem examining the choice between two roads that diverged in a wood, one of which was apparently "less traveled by."  And it made all the difference.