This post was cowritten by me and my husband Michael Whiteside.
Oh my Goodness… that was so good.
This morning, April 11th, 2024, I am 53 years old. With one bite of chewy white Wonder Bread, salty peanut butter and sweet sweet saaaweet grape jelly, I was instantly transported back to 1981. To a simpler time of innocence and youth, and when a huge injustice happened to me.
It was 1981 when I was eleven, a time before I was a diabetic and my life was so much simpler. This was a time where I actually ate two pieces of bread for a sandwich and washed it down with a big glass of whole milk, then ran outside to play.
I had been wanting and wanting something I saw advertised while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Maybe one of my friends had it at their house and I was so envious. This product looked amazing to me, a wonderful invention that looked as good as sliced bread must have been to the pioneers. One jar. Two simple ingredients. Peanut butter and grape jelly. Two delicious things that existed separately before but never in the same jar. Praise the geniuses at Smucker’s (from Orville, Ohio) for combining these two delightful foods in the same GLASS container giving it the catchy name” Goober”! Charging more and providing less. It was released by the company in 1968 but I didn’t know about it until 1980. It was so pretty with the alternating stripes of peanut butter and jelly. Goober, with the bright cartoon colored label that all the cool/rich kids were eating.
One day in Safeway I said “Mom, MOM look at this can I get this mom please oh please!” “No Michael put it back we can’t afford that, and we have peanut butter and jelly at home already.” (You know the kind in the large store brand container with a white background and black letters that simply read “PEANUT BUTTER “and whatever the store brand was for Grape Jelly). I knew it was a lost cause but over the next few store trips I asked a few more times with the answer still being “NO” I finally I gave up. Then one day after school when my excitement had dulled and I was not expecting anything of interest in the cupboard, I opened it up for a snack to find a beautiful shining new GLASS of Smucker’s Goober PB & J! I was so excited! I grabbed the bread and wonder of wonders; it was WONDER bread. I got a spoon from the drawer and prepared to build my sandwich. In my excited clumsy state I reached for the jar of Goober and I dropped it on the floor. Nooooooooooooooooo
My father was in the next room and heard the crash. He came into the kitchen to inspect the damage. A small 1/2-inch section on the top of the jar shattered and mixed with the contents. “Throw it away Michael” he said. “The whole jar” I asked. “Yes, the whole jar”! I begged, “But but dad I can just eat around the broken glass”. “Michael” dad said, “don’t be ridiculous, NO throw it away son”. Sadly I obeyed. I took that as a sign from above, and my parents never bought it again.
Forty-three years later after telling my wife this horrific story she brought home a brand-new jar of Smucker's Goober PB&J
and a loaf of wonder bread. Thanks to her she helped me travel back in time to 1981 and not just fix an injustice, but fulfilled a childhood wish.
Thanks Honey, I love you!