Gum and its lessons of life for boomers

Bad news for Boomer chewers: Fruit Stripe gum is on the way out. A transitory sensual experience, a lifelong lesson. That was what Fruit Stripe gum gave to generations. And now it's over.

The maker of Fruit Stripe gum has announced that it's canceling the 64-year-old confection. Sorry, not canceling, "sunsetting" it. An odd term, because this would suggest that the gum will reappear in 12 hours in the east.

For most of human history, the world of gum was bifurcated between mint and bubble. The former genre was owned by Wrigley. They made Spearmint gum, but no one can identify that. No waiter ever came by with a big grinder and said, "Fresh Spearmint?" No TV anchorman ever said, "The cold snap threatens the state's Spearmint crop." No ice cream maker ever sold a scround of "Chocolate fudge with Spearmint ribbons."

They also make Doublemint, which presupposes two distinct mint flavor profiles that combine to form a previously unknown taste. Pepper and Spear? No idea. Did they invent Triplemint but decide to call it Wintergreen? No one knows.

The bubble genre of gum was dominated by Bazooka, of course, with its tiny unfunny comics wrapped around a dry small brick. Chewing that thing felt like starting a locomotive from a dead stop on a cold day. I was always partial to Fleer, which tasted different and was more reliably pliable. But being a Fleer kid in a Bazooka world was like being an RC Cola/Look magazine family when everyone else was Coke and Life.

In all cases, of course, the gum lost its flavor after diligent chewing. But nothing lost its flavor quite as fast as Fruit Stripe. We loved it because it had stripes, which made it look cool. We accepted the fact that you couldn't really tell the difference in the flavors. We enjoyed the expansive efflorescence of the first bite, the bloom of the sugary rush. And then, after two or three chomps, it was dead as a wad of masticated newspaper.

There was a lesson in this. Many things in life will present the promise of immediate gratification, but there is a price to be paid: the disappointment following the transitory pleasure. The impatient and irritable need for another stick. The disillusionment when you realized that the "grape" flavor was but a chemical simulacrum of the real thing, and that you had been seduced into conflating "grape" with "purple."

But that sequence of reactions is a key to understanding life itself, no? We stand sometimes on the cusp of an action, a decision, and we are aware of how the pursuit of pleasure left us empty and wanting. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame, as Shakespeare put it (Sonnet 129).

We may not have heeded that lesson every time, but it was there in the margins of our mind, nagging us. I really, really want to get the sport package on this car, with the trim and the heated radio knobs, even though it increases my monthly payment — might this not be a Fruit Stripe moment?

What effect this has on future generations, I can't say. I guess they'll have to figure it out for themselves. If they want some advice, they can ask us old-timers, who had our own Fruit Stripe times in our youth, and now sit here on the porch working on a stick of Beemans.

What does it taste like? (Shrug) Tastes like Beemans. All day long.