Chocolate Milk Wars Revisited

Jennifer mentioned some goofy games that we played when we were just tots. I have to add something to her story though. A chocolate milk race was, if I'm remembering accurately, done only by sipping one spoonful at a time. So, you would indeed race down the hallway to the cups at the kitchen table, but you had to drink it with a spoon. Much more challenging. Another odd thing we used to do was Twinkie Smashing. (I hope I'm not imagining all this.) You would take your Twinkie and hurl it towards the ceiling. Twinkies can take pretty much punishment, so I think 3 to 4 throws where needed to smash one. Success was measured by a smashed, but un-opened Twinkie. I remember recounting this story to someone and we were laughing quite hard. They asked, "were they unwrapped?" I halted my laughter and said sternly, "No, that would be stupid." I wonder if Jennifer remembers too, the whistle that blew every morning at exactly 7:30 a.m. that we heard from our bedrooms. Annette and I were talking about that the other night. It's a changing of the shift whistle at the "Monsanto" plant down on River de Peres. I say "Monsanto", but it's long ago been sold by them to two or three different companies. I still hear that whistle. And I still hear the bells of the Lutheran Church on the corner of Holly Hills and Leona every hour. They're rung by hand with the clangs counting the hours of the day. I'll likely never live away from the sound of those bells.