Speaker 1: It's night Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2: Thirty one degrees here in the Greater Boston area. My
Speaker 2: name is Morgan White Junior. This is night Side Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: You should know by now who's been on vacation. And
Speaker 2: we'll be back Wednesday, the first of January twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: I first interviewed this woman about three or four years ago,
Speaker 2: maybe more, and she had written a book about candlepin bowling.
Speaker 2: She knew all the names Rosariolikiaraa Stasia, and Ed Zernike,
Speaker 2: all of the major names of watching Saturday Morning Candlepin
Speaker 2: Bowling on Channel five. And she wrote another book, a
Speaker 2: book based on all all the places to stop on
Speaker 2: Route one North, whether he wanted something to eat or
Speaker 2: for recreational purposes, the big orange dinosaur at the golf course,
Speaker 2: miniature golf course. And now she's got another book, a
Speaker 2: book about candy that's specific to New England. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of candy out there that our general area has produced,
Speaker 2: and it's been consumed by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont,
Speaker 2: New Hampshire, and Susan knows about it all. Susan Brakeman
Speaker 2: welcome to Night's Side.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, Morgan. It's a pleasure to be back,
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: And one of these days we're gonna go candlepin bowling
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna whoop up on you.
Speaker 3: Fine by me.
Speaker 2: I'm going to show you no mercy.
Speaker 3: Okay, no problem, I'll be ready.
Speaker 2: If you wind up beating me, I'm going to say, well,
Speaker 2: I'm seventy one years old. What do you expect you're
Speaker 2: near half my age?
Speaker 3: Well, something like that, something like that, something like that.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the Candy book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know it's actually it's called New England
Speaker 3: Sweets and it's not just about candy, although candy's a
Speaker 3: big chunk of it. It's New England Sweets and the
Speaker 3: subtitle is what is it? Donuts, Bonbonds and Whoopee Pies.
Speaker 3: So it's really all sorts of sweet baked things, frozen
Speaker 3: things and candies from New England, but a big chunk
Speaker 3: of it is candy. We talked about Necho your favorite,
Speaker 3: the wal Eco Bar.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm and Joy Peter Paul almenjoy In Mounds were
Speaker 3: made in Naugatuck, Connecticut for for years, so all sorts
Speaker 3: of candies came from New England.
Speaker 2: What inspired you to write this book?
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, I had just finished my book, A
Speaker 3: Long Route One, and I was kind of interested in
Speaker 3: writing a book about whoopee pies. That was my original idea.
Speaker 3: I was in Maine. I was spending a lot of
Speaker 3: time in Maine, and you know Mainlay's claim to whoopee pies,
Speaker 3: it's the official state treat And I thought that would
Speaker 3: be a great book. It has a great story. There's
Speaker 3: there's controversy, there's you know, three states claim ownership with
Speaker 3: the whoopee pie. There are two competing actually three competing
Speaker 3: whoopie pie festivals. So I thought it would be a
Speaker 3: fun book and I pitched that to my publisher, Arcadia Publishing,
Speaker 3: and they kind of gently suggested I broaden my scope.
Speaker 3: I had to look at New England suites and I did,
Speaker 3: and I'm glad I did.
Speaker 2: Their name came up in my interview with Anthony San
Speaker 2: Marco a couple of days ago. Arcadia Press.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a lot of books for years. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So now that you've got a triple crown of
Speaker 2: books out there, what's next, Well, you know.
Speaker 3: Let's finish this one. I just turned in the manuscript
Speaker 3: three days ago, so it's not out yet. You know,
Speaker 3: it's going to go through the editorial process and the
Speaker 3: design process and the publishing process, and it'll come out
Speaker 3: in July, July twenty twenty five, and then I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of candy stories that still
Speaker 3: need to be told. In Boston, Boston and Cambridge used
Speaker 3: to be the candy manufacturing center of the country. There
Speaker 3: were just dozens and dozens and dozens of candy companies,
Speaker 3: and some of them are just, you know, gone, nobody
Speaker 3: even knows who they were. But others were big deals
Speaker 3: and they were like major. There was obviously Necho, Yeah,
Speaker 3: there was. There was Daggett's, which was there for quite
Speaker 3: a long time. Duran Confectionery was there for quite a
Speaker 3: long time. James O. Welch Company was there. They made
Speaker 3: Junior Mint. And there's just a lot of stories out
Speaker 3: there that I think I didn't have enough room in
Speaker 3: this book to tell. So who knows, maybe that'll be
Speaker 3: my next one.
Speaker 2: All Right, you're in the fifth grade, You're a little
Speaker 2: girl in the fifth grade. You had a whole quarter
Speaker 2: in your pocket, and in those days, a lot Yeah,
Speaker 2: a couple of candy bars and a bag of chips.
Speaker 2: What was your first choice growing up?
Speaker 3: My first choice was always Eminem's with peanuts, ah, in
Speaker 3: that kind of.
Speaker 2: Maroon bag, not the dark chocolate bag, because I.
Speaker 3: Feel it was a yellow I feel it was.
Speaker 2: A yellow, yellowish maroon. You know, it wasn't a dark
Speaker 2: chocolate bag.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my that's my point. Okay, that's the point.
Speaker 2: And how do you feel about the way eminem has
Speaker 2: just revamped their advertising in the past ten years and
Speaker 2: the red Eminem is a smart alec and the green
Speaker 2: Eminem is kind of a vamp. How do you feel
Speaker 2: about that?
Speaker 4: Eh?
Speaker 3: Eh, Okay, I'm not their target audience anymore. I'll just
Speaker 3: say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I bet you still buy.
Speaker 3: Them sometimes sometimes, but you know, I'm trying to buy
Speaker 3: candies that have a New England connection now and Eminems.
Speaker 2: You do not. And you know why M and M's
Speaker 2: was invented.
Speaker 3: It was invented for soldiers, right because it didn't melt
Speaker 3: and World War.
Speaker 2: One, so a soldier could eat candy chocolate, which is
Speaker 2: an energy source, and it wouldn't melt in their hands
Speaker 2: and you're handling a rifle after chocolate toll over your hand,
Speaker 2: and they didn't want that, the US Army.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's very interesting.
Speaker 2: That's why they were invented. I know.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting and a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 3: of connection between candy and especially chocolate and the army
Speaker 3: because they did want you know, they wanted to give
Speaker 3: chocolates to soldiers for energy, for the calories, the energy
Speaker 3: and the caffeine. I think so at the beginning of
Speaker 3: World War One, I think it was the army solicited
Speaker 3: all the chocolate manufacturers to contribute like these big blocks
Speaker 3: of chocolate and then the army would slice them down
Speaker 3: into like chocolate bars and wrap them up and give
Speaker 3: them out to the troops. And then the troops came
Speaker 3: back and you know, they had a hankering for chocolate bars.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, there you go, chocolate bar. Chocolate
Speaker 3: bar industry exploded in the twenties.
Speaker 2: All right, I've got a news hit. But when we
Speaker 2: come back, I want you to put the spotlight as
Speaker 2: we both have mentioned my personal favorite candy.
Speaker 3: Bar, Walleco, Walleco and other company that.
Speaker 2: Put it out and the history and why we don't
Speaker 2: have Walco anymore. So you promised to do.
Speaker 5: That for me. I do good.
Speaker 2: Susan pregnant, We'll be back. You want to call in
Speaker 2: and talk to her six seven, five, four ten thirty
Speaker 2: eight eight eight nine to nine, ten thirty. This is
Speaker 2: night Side. Dan is off until the new year. I'm Morgan.
Speaker 2: Time and temperature here eleven fourteen thirty one degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios.
Speaker 2: On WBZ News Radio. Susan Bragman is my guest, and
Speaker 2: she's written a number of books. By the way, are
Speaker 2: all of them from Arcadia?
Speaker 3: Yes, and there's actually New England Sweets is my fourth book.
Speaker 3: My first one was called New England Neon, which I
Speaker 3: think you and I have never.
Speaker 2: Talked about, but we've we've mentioned it, although I've never yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, done and officially yeah, so yes, they're all for
Speaker 3: Arcadia and New England Neon came out in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: so they've all been in the past, you know a
Speaker 3: few years.
Speaker 2: Have these books put you in a different tax bracket?
Speaker 3: Yet?
Speaker 6: No, not yet.
Speaker 3: I'm still waiting.
Speaker 2: Well, everybody go out and buy them. If you hear
Speaker 2: my voice and you hear Susan with me, go buy
Speaker 2: her books.
Speaker 3: They're great. They're great books, they're interesting, they have a
Speaker 3: lot of information, good photographs, and they're a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Let me take a call from Woburn and Gary, welcome
Speaker 2: And what am I going to say to you? Gary? Well,
Speaker 2: I am going to say that, But what else am
Speaker 2: I going to say?
Speaker 7: Hi? Let me continue? That's your puzzle to night.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, Gary, turn out. This is your last
Speaker 2: call of the week because you've this is your third
Speaker 2: call in four days, and you know you're not supposed
Speaker 2: to call more than once or twice a week, and
Speaker 2: this is your third call. So until the new year,
Speaker 2: no more calls for you. But you're here now, doctor Susan.
Speaker 7: All right, Susan, get your favorite candy bars at sixty
Speaker 7: one years of age? Or was way back when when
Speaker 7: I was a kid? Was the marathon?
Speaker 3: The marathon? So that's not a new not a new
Speaker 3: England one?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 6: Not?
Speaker 3: In my book?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 7: Okay, I'm sorry, I did even know that.
Speaker 3: It's all right, I can't.
Speaker 7: Think of all new England candy bars.
Speaker 4: But I do have a question.
Speaker 7: What you guys are talking about war and so forth,
Speaker 7: of World War two and so forth. My question is
Speaker 7: this is did the companies charge the United States government
Speaker 7: to give the chocolate to the soldiers?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, I know, I think okay, you I
Speaker 3: know if you don't of the United States government paid
Speaker 3: the companies.
Speaker 2: It's like the United States government paid the cigarette companies
Speaker 2: to give cigarettes for the soldiers.
Speaker 3: Do they recoisition the chocolate? So they yes, yes, so
Speaker 3: they purchased it. Yes, Okay.
Speaker 7: Here's my last one?
Speaker 5: Is this?
Speaker 7: Uh I'm not even sure if it's noise one, but
Speaker 7: here it goes. We've heard of Russell Stova chocolates.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, that's yeah, that's it.
Speaker 7: Go ahead, Well, russell Stova is usually a holiday chocolate
Speaker 7: all through the years. And let's face the facts. I mean,
Speaker 7: you never really see it all year long. Where is
Speaker 7: russell Stova located?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Not here. I'm not sure where Russell Stover is. I
Speaker 3: know there were a whole bunch. There was Whitman's, there
Speaker 3: was Russell Stover, there was Shrafts. Shrafts was here. Of course.
Speaker 3: It was Cupboard, Oh yeah, candy cupboard and that was
Speaker 3: that ultimately became a neco brand that was originally Level
Speaker 3: and coverle who rhymed and they were they were a
Speaker 3: Cambridge They were a Cambridge company and they made candy cupboard,
Speaker 3: and Necho eventually ended up with candy cupboard. They acquired
Speaker 3: Level and Cover in nineteen thirty three and ended up
Speaker 3: making them a subsidiary and manufacturing the candy cupboards. Russell
Speaker 3: Stover is they're in Kansas City.
Speaker 7: Okay, very good. My last common says when the Christmas time,
Speaker 7: you know, when they mocked on the candy down to
Speaker 7: twenty five I have fifty and seventy five percent off. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 7: true story. CBS Pharmacy where I live, back about four
Speaker 7: years ago, it was down to seventy five percent off.
Speaker 7: It was about thirty seven cents each. And I went
Speaker 7: in there like a crazy weirdo, and I bought one
Speaker 7: hundred and fifty individual Russell Stover candy bars that are
Speaker 7: pretty huge at thirty seven cents because they usually cost
Speaker 7: them about a buck fifty or more. Yeah, And what happened.
Speaker 7: I just passed them out to all friends this that
Speaker 7: for like a few weeks this that, and everybody was like,
Speaker 7: are you kidding me? Because when you pass out of
Speaker 7: Russell Stover candy a chocolate to someone, you made their day.
Speaker 2: What a nice sky you were.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I am and they can be looking. That sound great?
Speaker 2: Thank you, Gary. You take care of happy holiday sper
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas into Happy New Year. Anyone else wants to do?
Speaker 3: What? Gary? Did?
Speaker 2: Your phone number six one, seven, two, five four ten
Speaker 2: thirty or eight eight, eight, nine two nine ten thirty.
Speaker 2: I've got Susan Brakman here. And do you want to
Speaker 2: talk about your previous books as well as the Candy
Speaker 2: book or your next book? Where do I Where do
Speaker 2: I direct the conversation?
Speaker 3: Let's talk about wal Eco bars.
Speaker 2: Yes, Gary distracted because.
Speaker 3: They will be in New England suites, so they will
Speaker 3: be in the forthcoming book. So there was a company
Speaker 3: in Brockton called the FB Washburn Company and they started
Speaker 3: in eighteen fifty six. Francis Washburn named it after himself,
Speaker 3: of course, and it started as yeah, well they all
Speaker 3: did at that time. And he opened a bakery. It
Speaker 3: was originally a bakery in Brockton, but their most popular
Speaker 3: item was a coconut cookie, so he tried to figure
Speaker 3: out a way to turn it into a candy. And
Speaker 3: the timing is a little fuzzy, but at one point
Speaker 3: he wanted to do that and then in nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 3: a man named Harry Gilson bought Washburns and he moved
Speaker 3: to Brockton from Brooklyn and came here. He had no
Speaker 3: particular background in either the bakery industry or the candy
Speaker 3: making industry, but he bought Washburns and started making candy.
Speaker 3: And one of the candies he made was the Waal
Speaker 3: Eco bar, and he did that sometime in Nobody seems
Speaker 3: to have an exact date, but it seems to have
Speaker 3: been in the late nineteen thirties. And while eco bars
Speaker 3: are chocolate covered coconut bars.
Speaker 2: Why did he stop? And then why did they stop?
Speaker 3: The company stopped again, no official explanation except it seems
Speaker 3: they stopped in the eighties and they wanted to focus
Speaker 3: on their hard candies. They had just purchased seventy seventies candy,
Speaker 3: which made ribbon candy, right, and they wanted to focus
Speaker 3: on their ribbon candy. And they were also making Dad's
Speaker 3: root beer barrels, They made sower bawls, they made lollipops,
Speaker 3: and they made lollipops like for bank lobbies and stuff
Speaker 3: like TD Bank where you can get a lollipops. So
Speaker 3: that was a big big, big part of their company,
Speaker 3: and for whatever reason, they decided to stop making chocolate
Speaker 3: bars and focus on the hard candy.
Speaker 2: There's a candy bar route there from England called Bounty
Speaker 2: and now it's the closest in taste to the Walleco bar.
Speaker 2: Almond Joy or Mounds does not even in my taste
Speaker 2: buds make me reminisce about Walleco, but the Bounty bar does. Now,
Speaker 2: I know you're focusing on candy made in New England.
Speaker 2: Do you know anything about the Bounty bar.
Speaker 3: I know it's not sold in the US, right, It's
Speaker 3: sold in England and maybe Canada, but I think England
Speaker 3: and there are a.
Speaker 2: Few stores around here that sell it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but it's it's not I think it was
Speaker 3: designed to be an imitation of the Mounds bar, and
Speaker 3: yeah sound Mounts. Mounts used dark chocolate, almon Joy uses
Speaker 3: milk chocolate.
Speaker 2: And almond Joy has the nuts obviously has.
Speaker 3: The almond Yeah, right, and does not right, because sometimes
Speaker 3: you feel like a nut, heytimes you don't.
Speaker 2: Hey, that phrase, that phrase might catch on. Maybe we'll
Speaker 2: make money on your ability to make magic phrases.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if only I know, I know. So that's the
Speaker 3: third well ego, But can I tell you there's a
Speaker 3: funny PostScript. Yes, they had in the nineteen sixties when
Speaker 3: they were still making the bars, they I think they
Speaker 3: tried to get sort of hip and groovy and they
Speaker 3: had a competition with local bands to write a radio
Speaker 3: jingle and the winning group was called a Flat Earth
Speaker 3: Society and they were a akadelic band from Lynn, Okay,
Speaker 3: and they won the contest. But they were like so
Speaker 3: unprepared that they didn't have enough songs to fill an album,
Speaker 3: so they had to write them on the spot and
Speaker 3: then it just kind of they landed in obscurity. Nobody
Speaker 3: bought the album, so.
Speaker 2: That was the end of that. So what are the
Speaker 2: odds of somebody buying out the company. I know the
Speaker 2: company is defunct, but well, enough money they can be
Speaker 2: brought back and maybe they will go back to making
Speaker 2: ribbon candy and the wal Eco bar am I Wison
Speaker 2: past the graveyard here.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, they sold they sold the ribbon candy
Speaker 3: line to a company in Henderson, Nevada, Nevada.
Speaker 5: A time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they sold the other hard candies to a
Speaker 3: different company. So they sold off all their active candy,
Speaker 3: you know, active candy lines, so Washburn's is no more.
Speaker 3: I don't know who has the recipe for well Eco bars.
Speaker 3: There are still there are still descendants of Harry Gilson
Speaker 3: who are around, but I don't know that they have
Speaker 3: the recipe.
Speaker 2: Okay. Now you mentioned four books, all by Arcadia Press.
Speaker 2: Tell my audience the exact title of all four books.
Speaker 3: Okay. So my first book was called New England Neon,
Speaker 3: and that came out in twenty eighteen, and that looked
Speaker 3: at Neon signs, as the title says, in all six
Speaker 3: New England states. It looked at you know, existing signs
Speaker 3: like the Sitco sign, or the Shell sign or Memorial Drive,
Speaker 3: the Hilltop Steakhouse sign when it was still a Neon
Speaker 3: sign that said Hilltop Steakhouse. And then you know some
Speaker 3: historic signs that have been gone forever, like the White
Speaker 3: Fuel Company sign that used to be in Kenmore Kenmore Square.
Speaker 3: My second book was called New England Candleton Bowling, and
Speaker 3: that came out in twenty twenty, in the middle of
Speaker 3: the pandemic, and that was kind of a historical look
Speaker 3: at Candleton Bowling. Also looked at some of the people,
Speaker 3: like you said before, Stasia Zernike Tommy Olsta and that
Speaker 3: that one kind of somehow ended up leading me into
Speaker 3: my next book, which was called A Long Route one Maine,
Speaker 3: New Hampshire and Massachusetts. And in that book, I looked
Speaker 3: at landmarks, historical sites, you know, popular cultural sites like
Speaker 3: the one orange dinosaur uh from Fort from Fort Kent,
Speaker 3: Maine down to Attleborough, Massachusetts. And that's more of a
Speaker 3: historical book. That that drew a lot of a lot
Speaker 3: of information from historical societies and libraries and universities and archives.
Speaker 3: And then we come to New England Suites, which comes
Speaker 3: out next summer.
Speaker 2: And I want people to purchase these books because I
Speaker 2: want Susan to become independently wealthy and to absolutely I'm
Speaker 2: going to take a break here if you want to
Speaker 2: call and speak to Susan, maybe mention your favorite favorite
Speaker 2: candy product and find out who made it and when
Speaker 2: and all those things. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten,
Speaker 2: thirty eight eight, eight, nine, two, nine, ten thirty Here
Speaker 2: on night side, where the temperature is thirty one degrees
Speaker 2: at eleven thirty one.
Speaker 1: Night Side Thought with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: So some pregnant is here. We're talking candy and the
Speaker 2: origin of maybe some of your favorite candies, and we
Speaker 2: talked about Necho New England.
Speaker 3: Confection Company Sectionary Company CCO.
Speaker 2: Thank you for making me say it the right way.
Speaker 5: They had.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to put this a little brew
Speaker 2: haha over the candy hearts that we've all eaten when
Speaker 2: we were kids and grown up with and the skull
Speaker 2: butt had that circumstance caused them moving from Cambridge to Revere. Now,
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's true or not, but why
Speaker 2: don't you tell that story to people.
Speaker 7: I know?
Speaker 3: I know about the move from Cambridge to Revere. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure what bruhaha you're talking about. As far as
Speaker 3: I knew, they moved because they wanted to consolidate their
Speaker 3: real estate holdings and they could get a fortune for
Speaker 3: selling their property in Cambridge. They sold it for like
Speaker 3: seventy seven million dollars to Novartis and they moved to
Speaker 3: Revere in I forget what year it was, two thousand
Speaker 3: and four, two thousand and eight, somewhere like that.
Speaker 2: That little walk of land costs how much.
Speaker 3: The Neco factory sold first, I believe seventy seven million
Speaker 3: dollars but now I'm going to have to check with
Speaker 3: the Nicco.
Speaker 2: Factory had that water tower with the word Nicko on
Speaker 2: the side.
Speaker 3: I know, and it used to be striped.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They sold it in two thousand and four for seventy
Speaker 3: seven million and they painted the water tower. It was
Speaker 3: a big building, I know, it was a big.
Speaker 2: Building youried with regularity. I mean that was the main way.
Speaker 3: It's still a big building.
Speaker 2: That was the main way to get into Cambridge Bank
Speaker 2: going over the mass at.
Speaker 3: Bridge mm hmmm.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was right there on mass Aft by Main Street.
Speaker 3: The one end of confectioner's were ow.
Speaker 2: So how are they doing in Revere?
Speaker 3: Well, that was the beginning of the end for them.
Speaker 3: They got sold in two thousand and seven. They got
Speaker 3: sold to like a you know, a group of investors
Speaker 3: who were highly leveraged and incurred a lot of debt.
Speaker 3: And you know, they hung on. They hung on for
Speaker 3: about ten years, but they were sold. They were sold
Speaker 3: in a bankruptcy auction in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: And Neco wafers, well they still.
Speaker 3: Make Necko wafers, so Necho wafers and Sweethearts and Canada
Speaker 3: Mints were all sold to a company Ohio in Ohio
Speaker 3: called Spangler. They make those, they make dumb dumb lollipops, yes,
Speaker 3: and Spangler. You know, it took a year to retool
Speaker 3: whatever they had to do, and they started making Nico
Speaker 3: Wafers and Sweethearts again in twenty twenty and Canada Mints also,
Speaker 3: and yeah, a few of the Necho products got a
Speaker 3: new life after Necho. After Necho went under, So Neco Wafers, Sweethearts,
Speaker 3: Canada Mints, Stararars, Skybar. So Skybar is the only former
Speaker 3: Neco product that's still made a Massachusetts and they're made
Speaker 3: that is a small company in Sudbury and a woman
Speaker 3: named Louise, Louise Mawinney, and she rescued Skybar and started
Speaker 3: manufacturing them from a storefront on Route twenty in Sudbury.
Speaker 2: And is Skybar the same fourth sections that it was
Speaker 2: when we were kids. Yeah, caramel fudge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, peanut butter or peanut. Yeah, it's like caramel fudge
Speaker 3: peanut and like a vanilla kind of yeah, nugats. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And the formulas changed over the years. And she, you
Speaker 3: know when she bought she boughte you know, all the
Speaker 3: intellectual property, so all the old recipes and she experimented
Speaker 3: a little bit and went back to you know, either
Speaker 3: the original or very shortly after the nineteen thirties era flavors,
Speaker 3: and she upgraded the chocolate as well. So they're really
Speaker 3: quite good now. But Skybar Skybar had a fun origin
Speaker 3: story because you know, they named it. It was there
Speaker 3: was actually a Skyline series of candies and Skybar is
Speaker 3: the most famous, and it was you know, they were
Speaker 3: trying to tap in with the public's fascination with aviation
Speaker 3: because this was in nineteen thirty old, okay, and they
Speaker 3: launched it. This is like such a good story. They
Speaker 3: launched it with a skywriting campaign, so they would you know,
Speaker 3: they had a skywrider and he would write, you know,
Speaker 3: mile high letters in the sky that said sky Bar.
Speaker 3: So yeah, they really they really rolled out all the
Speaker 3: stops for Skybar back in the thirties.
Speaker 2: You know what, young lady, you know your stuff, and
Speaker 2: I learned.
Speaker 3: A lot of really fun stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think people should give you credits for what
Speaker 2: you do know about our favorite candies.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate that. I enjoy sharing these stories because
Speaker 3: they're really interesting, and you know, not everybody, not everybody
Speaker 3: has heard all these details, and some of them are
Speaker 3: old stories. So you know, people weren't around. I wasn't
Speaker 3: around in the thirties. You weren't around in the thirties.
Speaker 2: No, it didn't turn to the fifties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but later than that you, Oh, who knows. But
Speaker 3: so my website do you want Can I tell people
Speaker 3: my website?
Speaker 2: Yes, I want you to tell your website.
Speaker 3: My website is www dot Rednickel dot com, Red like
Speaker 3: the color Nickel, likedthecoin dot com.
Speaker 1: And I'm on.
Speaker 3: Facebook and Instagram as red Nickel neon, which is a
Speaker 3: nod to my first book. Yeah, yes, and red Nickel. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: I was just going to tell you it was sort
Speaker 3: of named after a slot machine, which I thought might
Speaker 3: be of interest to you.
Speaker 2: Oh, definitely of interest. What slot machine? What's it called,
Speaker 2: Red Nickel.
Speaker 3: Well, it wasn't an actual slot machine. What it was
Speaker 3: was a photograph I took many years ago when I
Speaker 3: was at the Luxor in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't years ago because the luxw did can't
Speaker 2: come around to the late eighties.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, it was in the nineties that I took
Speaker 3: this picture, and it was a color picture. When the
Speaker 3: Luxor when the casino was sort of had a red
Speaker 3: Egyptian theme. Yes, And it was a photograph of a
Speaker 3: bank of slot machine nickel slots, And so I named
Speaker 3: this photograph and I was, you know, putting titles on
Speaker 3: my photograph. I called it red Nickel because it was
Speaker 3: red and it had nickel slots, and that's where the
Speaker 3: name came from.
Speaker 2: When was the last time you were in Vegas?
Speaker 3: Oh, pre pandemic. Oh yeah, it's been a while.
Speaker 2: You've got to go back again.
Speaker 3: I know, I know. I have a friend in California
Speaker 3: and we go to Vegas together. But he's had he's
Speaker 3: had family obligations taking up his time and we just
Speaker 3: haven't had a chance to to get to Vegas in
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 2: Tell you what, You've got my home number. The next
Speaker 2: time we have plans to go to Vegas. Let me know, maybe,
Speaker 2: just maybe I can coordinate a trip and I will
Speaker 2: take you and your friend to the best restaurant in Vegas,
Speaker 2: which is Michaels and Michael's is at the South Point
Speaker 2: Hotel on the Strip kind of south. You are at
Speaker 2: the corner of the Excalibur Luxor MGM used to be
Speaker 2: the Tropicana but they've they've raised the But you go
Speaker 2: maybe about four and a half five miles further south,
Speaker 2: like you were going to take the long way to
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, and that's where the South Point Hotel is
Speaker 2: and Michaels is one of the most famous hotels in Vegas.
Speaker 2: And I will take you and your friend to dinner
Speaker 2: at Michael's my treat.
Speaker 7: It's a deal.
Speaker 2: Now, we're just gonna find ourselves in Vegas at the.
Speaker 3: Time at the same time.
Speaker 2: But if we can coordinate that you're in for, oh
Speaker 2: my goodness, the meal. For an example, let's say you
Speaker 2: order for an app appetizer. They're seafood Special. They take
Speaker 2: a block of ice, and let's say you cut a
Speaker 2: bowling ball tenpin in half and it's all all ice,
Speaker 2: and they insert they make holes and insert crab, shrimp,
Speaker 2: lobster all through that and then there's a candle underneath
Speaker 2: it so it's illuminated. Oh you can have that, my treat.
Speaker 3: I'll pay and deal unless it become rich and famous
Speaker 3: of these books, well.
Speaker 2: Then well we'll settle line and were said of what
Speaker 2: that figure can be. Susan Brigman is my guests. If
Speaker 2: you want to call in. You got roughly ten twelve
Speaker 2: minutes of time to say hello to her and talk
Speaker 2: candy here on night Side Time eleven forty six thirty
Speaker 2: one degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nice Sight Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: I've got three people waiting to speak to Susan Brigman.
Speaker 2: I've got eight minutes to give them their chance.
Speaker 5: To do it.
Speaker 2: Let's start with Ken and Bridgewater, Line one. Ken, what's up?
Speaker 8: Yes, Hi Kenny, how you doing tonight?
Speaker 5: Hi? Hi, Susan.
Speaker 8: So I had, first of all, you touched on all
Speaker 8: the candy that I liked, the Wallycos my favorite, and
Speaker 8: then of course skybars. You gave me information that I
Speaker 8: had no idea they were being made. So that's wonderful.
Speaker 8: One of the things that has bothered me for a
Speaker 8: long long.
Speaker 9: Time is the Nestle's chocolate bar. I always thought the
Speaker 9: Nestle's chocolate was way better than a Hershey's bar, and
Speaker 9: you can't find them anymore. And I was wondering if
Speaker 9: you knew anything about the Nestle's chocolate bar used to
Speaker 9: come in a white package with red letters on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know really much about that because that
Speaker 3: wasn't the focus of my research, so I really can't
Speaker 3: answer that. I'm sorry to say. You know, I know
Speaker 3: that Nestle's, Hershey, and Mars are the three big candy
Speaker 3: companies now and they pretty much control the candy bar market.
Speaker 5: So I did.
Speaker 9: I did discover something quite by accident. If anybody's looking
Speaker 9: for the Nestle's chocolate bar, which I still think is
Speaker 9: the best one ever, is if you if you buy
Speaker 9: the milk chocolate morsels, the Nestle's morsels for chocolate chip cookies,
Speaker 9: the milk ones, milk chocolate, you could eat like two
Speaker 9: or three of those at a time in your mouth.
Speaker 9: It's it's just like the old Nestli's chocolate bar.
Speaker 8: All right, How I get my fix?
Speaker 3: Melt them down?
Speaker 8: Melt them down? Yeah, sure you could do that too.
Speaker 2: Ken, you live in Bridgewater, there is a candy store
Speaker 2: East Bridgewater called Pinches and Pounds. Have you ever been there?
Speaker 5: I have not.
Speaker 2: It's on the intersection of twenty seven and eighteen.
Speaker 5: Call them.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you can look up their number and see
Speaker 2: if they have the candy product you're looking for. Because
Speaker 2: if it's candy, they specialize in older almost forgotten candies.
Speaker 5: Okay, perfect, I'll try it. Thank you very much, Ken,
Speaker 5: happy too, Thank you. Go to Rick and Bill Rica, Rick.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Morgan and Susan.
Speaker 6: How are you Susan? Then, when I was a kid,
Speaker 6: how are you happy? Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, happy everything.
Speaker 6: When I was a kid in the early late seventies,
Speaker 6: early agies, I used to grow up in Burlington, mass
Speaker 6: And I used to go to Dale Pharmacy and see
Speaker 6: ethel for a watcher m a call it bar and
Speaker 6: a package of hockey cards. And right across the shree
Speaker 6: was a fanny farmer by the way in Burlington. I
Speaker 6: know they came out of Rochester, New York, but and
Speaker 6: I just wanted to say I thought I was a
Speaker 6: mister cool when when I would smoke those or blow
Speaker 6: out the confectionery sugar and the bubblegum cigarettes as a kid,
Speaker 6: I enjoyed that. And I know that it's might not
Speaker 6: have anything to do with your research, but Bubble Young
Speaker 6: Bubble isious. And there was another bubble gum company and
Speaker 6: they were so popular in the early eighties. I love
Speaker 6: the grape bubble yum and I think it was bubble
Speaker 6: ishous that had the orange and that raspberrybody. It was
Speaker 6: such a craze to buy chewing gum. But thank you
Speaker 6: for your work.
Speaker 3: Lots of fun, sure, thank you every week.
Speaker 2: Thank you for your call.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, all right.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Susan Oh.
Speaker 3: I was just going to say there was a gum
Speaker 3: company in East Boston for years called Gum Product, very
Speaker 3: very clear name, and they made I think during World
Speaker 3: War Two they made a bubble gum product called Yank
Speaker 3: Yanks Yanks bubble gum, I remember that. Yeah, So they
Speaker 3: were around and then they made gumballs also, and they
Speaker 3: were around till I think thineteen eighty and then they
Speaker 3: got shut down and now now the building is condos
Speaker 3: called you know, the bubblegum factory.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go to Adlebur and speak to Michael. Michael,
Speaker 2: welcome to night Side.
Speaker 4: Hey, great show as usual. Three quick questions because I
Speaker 4: know you don't have the time. Was Charleston choo local?
Speaker 3: Yes, So Charleston Choe was originally made in Cambridge by
Speaker 3: a company called Oh it's going to come to me.
Speaker 3: It was originally made in Cambridge, and then I think
Speaker 3: they moved to Everett for a while and then they
Speaker 3: got bought and through a whole bunch of corporate transfers,
Speaker 3: they ended up back in Cambridge and they are still
Speaker 3: made in the last candy factory in Cambridge on Main Street.
Speaker 4: Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know. Is that the one
Speaker 4: that makes actually not in Cambridge but Marshall Fluff.
Speaker 3: No, that's a different company. That's Mower Jurkey Mower, know right.
Speaker 3: Charleson Chew was originally made by the Fox Cross Company,
Speaker 3: but today TUTSI roll owns them and they make Charleston
Speaker 3: Choose at eight ten Main Street, which is sort of
Speaker 3: at the corner of Main Street and mass Ave. It's
Speaker 3: the same building that makes Junior Mints as well.
Speaker 4: All right, this one last cook thing, I know you're
Speaker 4: going to hang up real quick. Whatever happened to the
Speaker 4: Caravel bar? I was just reading about the seventies. I
Speaker 4: loved it. I know, I don't know what a candy,
Speaker 4: but I loved that bar. The one hundred grand on
Speaker 4: one million grand whatever that one's called. It's close to it,
Speaker 4: but it's not the same. And the last thing is
Speaker 4: the Neco waves now made in Mexico.
Speaker 3: Are they well? I know they're made by Spangler but
Speaker 3: it could be they, you know, manufactured elsewhere.
Speaker 4: They had to take they had to take the banner
Speaker 4: off the label made in America.
Speaker 2: All right, Michael, I gotta get one more on. Thank you, David,
Speaker 2: and Lake Placid. You're the last call the night with
Speaker 2: Susan Brigman.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, David, Yes, I was just wondering whatever happened
Speaker 4: to the Coca Cola signs in Allston.
Speaker 9: Oh god, it was.
Speaker 6: It was removed.
Speaker 3: It was supposed to be saved. It was stored temporarily
Speaker 3: in the Conrail railroad yard, and it just basically.
Speaker 2: Somebody, somebody has it and they keeping me quiet. Bet David,
Speaker 2: thank you for the question. By all right, Susan, get
Speaker 2: a whole flurry of calls there at the m Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And you make your money sell these books.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm working on it, and thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Fun to talk about.
Speaker 2: Two dates, a candlepin bowling date and a dinner dayton Vegas.
Speaker 3: And a dinner date in Vegas. This is great.
Speaker 2: You take care of yourself.
Speaker 3: Happy new Year, Okay, thank you, Morgan, you Happy new Year.
Speaker 2: There you go, Susan Brakeman. I had George go, hey,
Speaker 2: we're gone tonight. I had Cindy Bruce, and I had
Speaker 2: Shearffy and Doctor. Thank you to all the ladies here
Speaker 2: on night Side and Rob, thank you for being Rob.
Speaker 2: Nancy Gray, thank you too. And all the people who
Speaker 2: listen to and to are called, thank you for your
Speaker 2: participation with Nightside. I'll be here tomorrow and I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna say my parting two words by Boston