PEA RIDGE — As I read Parade Magazine on Sunday, Aug. 9, I came across an unusual ad for a breakfast cereal. It was advertising new Vanilla Almond Shredded Wheat. But rather than touting its "newness," the ad centered on what was not new! The wording was, "So while the natural vanilla and real almonds in Post Vanilla Almond Shredded Wheat may be new, they're simply baked into pure, honest-to-goodness wheat - the same kind we've been shredding for 117 years.
The capping off claim said, "... it's the only delicious new cereal on the market that's sortof-new!"
Sort-of-new! As one who loves subtle humor, I like that.
I'll probably try this sort-ofnew cereal soon. All through my life I have eaten shredded wheat for breakfast now and then. I think of shredded wheat as one of the old-time cereals, along with Quaker Oats, Post Toasties, Wheaties, Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice. I don't see Puffed Wheat or Puffed Rice any more. Am I just not looking? I also don't hear Snap, Crackle and Pop for Rice Krispies any more?
And, when we have shredded wheat today, we always have the bite-sized chunks. Do theystill make shredded wheat in those pillow-shaped biscuits?
As I remember shredded wheat early on, it always came as sizable biscuits. One shredded wheat "biscuit" made a bowlful. When I was growing up we had shredded wheat pretty often. Usually in eating it you wanted to pour milk over the biscuit and let it soak.
I would let the milk soak all through and then sprinkle on a little sugar. I liked it soggy, not crunchy. It was good! My wife Nancy remembers that her daddy loved shredded wheat.
Apparently she didn't! She says it tastes like dried straw!
Hmm! I may never get her to try this sort-of-new Vanilla Almond Shredded Wheat?!
I can hardly wait to find sort-of-new Shredded Wheat at the grocery.
This all sets me thinking, When is new better? Are there times when the new is not better? I'm ready to acknowledge that quite often new things are better. At least they are better in some ways. At the sametime, I would not want to go for new things willy-nilly, without considering and comparing. I have acknowledged that for the most part, today's new cars are better than the old cars. Today's X-ray machines are better than those of 30 years ago. The new medical imaging machines produce clearer and more useful images - and are also horrendously expensive! Today's recordings on CD, DVD and Blue Ray are pretty definitely better, compared to the 1920s Victoria cylinders and flat records - far clearer and with no scratchy sounds.
But in some situations I am less ready to say that the new is better. Back in 1985, the Coca Cola company, the leading soft-drink maker, decided that Coca Cola, its flagship drink, needed a "new" flavor.
The reasoning was that the old flavor had been around a long time, and the 1980s young people were tending to drink more Pepsi. So Coke executives decided to replace "Old Coke" with "New Coke." After several months of mixed results, they came back with Classic Coke, using supposedly the old original formula. I didn't like the sweet taste of the "New Coke," so I "went back" to Classic Coke. I havealways wondered, though, if I could tell which was which if I were involved in a taste test.
Anyway, "New Coke," for me, was an instance when the new was not better. When they went from glass bottles to aluminum cans, that wasn't better either. And when they went to plastic jugs, NOT better! Hurrah for glass Coke bottles! Did you know that Catfish John is serving Coca Cola in glass bottles now. Not for a nickel though.
I like many of our new hightech communications devices. E-mails, cell phones, blogs, tweets, interesting! But are we communicating better? Are we going backward in the arts of conversation and behavior?
When is a Twitterer a twit?
Does our society still need to learn courtesy? Respect? Polite manners? Taking turns in speaking? Learning to listen to what others have to say? Too many belligerent people these days are demanding to be heard, but are unwilling to listen and understand when others speak. Whatever our hightech devices, we need to communicate considerately. New things can be better, if we use them better.
Contact Jerry Nichols by email at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Community, Pages 5 on 08/19/2009