Where Did You Get Your Driver’s License – in a Box of Cracker Jack?

“Where did you get your driver’s license – in a box of Cracker Jack?”

When I first got my driver’s license, I noticed that not all the other drivers were the perfect driver I was. When I saw a case of numbskullery behind a steering wheel, here’s what I’d say: “Where did you get your driver’s license – in a box of Cracker Jack?”

One of my prized possessions in my junk drawer is a caramel-colored crumb of concrete.

I can’t be sure, but I think it’s a piece of molasses-flavored, caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts named Cracker Jack. It’s an antique from 1927. I’m not certain of that year. I can’t even prove what it is, but it was a crackerjack idea to claim 1927 as the year. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in a single-seat, single-engine monoplane named the Spirit of St. Louis.  The first transatlantic telephone call was made from New York City to London. Babe Ruth set a home run record when he hit 60 of them, and work began on Mount Rushmore. A Model A Ford cost $325, and an Atwater Kent radio set a buyer back $70. A man’s raccoon coat sold for between $295 and $395. A raccoon coat was more fuel-efficient than a Model A. The first synchronized dialogue ever spoken in a feature-length motion picture was “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” uttered by Al Jolson in “The Jazz Singer.” I think 1927 is the perfect year to have given birth to the unidentifiable thing that resides in my junk drawer.

Cracker Jack had been good for eating while I pulled my Radio Flyer little red wagon with squeaky wheels, on my way to enhance my childhood ant collection.

A relative told me that prior to World War II, life preservers were filled with the floss of the kapok tree that grew in the West Indies. During the war, Japan took control of the islands where these trees grew, thus cutting off the Allies’ supply. Milkweed floss became an excellent substitute with properties much like goose down. The floss of the milkweed pod is naturally buoyant and water-repellent. She became a young girl collecting milkweed seedpods and doing her part for the war effort.

The confection was first sold to the public at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, but it didn’t get the name Cracker Jack until 1896, when it adopted the slogan “The More You Eat, The More You Want.” Toy surprises were added to each box in 1912, and every box proclaimed, “Prize inside.” The tchotchkes had quality until metal rationing began during World War II, and those marbles, rings, compasses, figurines, miniature tools, flipbooks, baseball cards and whistles have since become collectibles. With the rationing, the rewards became less substantial.

The images of Sailor Jack and Bingo began gracing the box of the molasses (sugar)-coated popcorn and peanuts during World War I in 1918.

A waltz was written and published in 1908 with these lyrics “Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd; buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don’t care if I never get back. Let me root, root, root for the home team, if they don’t win, it’s a shame. For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out, at the old ball game.”

Among those associated with that song was the Hall of Fame sportscaster Harry Caray, who began singing at baseball games in Comiskey Park for the Chicago White Sox from the early 1970s to 1981, then at Wrigley Field for the Chicago Cubs from 1982 through 1997. Caray’s tradition of leading the Wrigley crowd in singing the song during the 7th inning stretch worked because his boundless energy and marginal musical talents were contagious.

People still sing that song, but the prizes inside a box of Cracker Jack have been reduced to stickers used with an app. The prizes fell prey to the profit margin. The boxes are stingy with the peanuts.

Meat Loaf sang, “There ain’t no Coupe De Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.”

There’s not even a temporary tattoo hiding there.