Remember When Fruit Roll-Ups Were Popular?

Remember when Fruit Roll-Ups were a popular snack?

I do.

Every morning of elementary school the class was given fifteen minutes to eat a snack.  You could bring any snack you wanted.  In the beginning I was given snacks like apples or carrots or apricots.  The apricots were okay.  But I noticed that some of the other kids were eating a gelatinous substance that they peeled from a plastic sheet.  I asked these kids what was the name of their strange and exciting snack.

“It’s a Fruit Roll-Up.  Would you like some?”

I replied that I would..

“Well you can’t have any.”

That night I lobbied my parents for Fruit Roll-Ups.  At first they were skeptical, but when you are a kid you can afford to be persistent because you have nothing else to do.

Fruit Roll-Ups came in a variety of flavors.  The first one I got was strawberry.  The first morning I brought a Fruit Roll-Up to class was the proudest of my life.  I will never forget the moment that snack time was called and I was at long last able to congregate with the other Fruit Roll-Up eaters.

“Hey there, Kaplowitz.  I see you’ve got a Fruit Roll-Up.”

I replied that I had.

“What happened to the apple?”

I replied that I did not know what he was talking about.

“Well do you want to trade with me?  I’ve never had a strawberry one before.”

I told him to go to hell.

Some people would peel off their Fruit Roll-Ups all at once and twist them up and eat them.  I never did that.  I liked to peel off a piece at time and savor the gelatinous treasure.

I don’t know if they still sell Fruit Roll-Ups.  I have heard that some teachers require kids to bring “healthy” snacks.  Liberty loses another battle in its war with Health.

0 thoughts on “Remember When Fruit Roll-Ups Were Popular?

  1. The ones I see at my son’s school are in a form like a roll of tape. Kids like to unroll all six feet before they eat it, and then dangle it, letting it touch surfaces that should not be touched by food…
    My grandmother had a fruit dehydrator and a berry patch. We ate REAL “fruit leather” as it was called. Thick and tangy and delicious, it turned my fingers and mouth purple.

Leave a Reply