Molly and I baked Twinkies last night in a cross-generational salute to a squishy snack cake we both thought would last forever.
I trace my own nostalgia for the somewhat tasteless treat to my Catholic grade school years during which Hostess snacks proved a sweet antidote to the stress of life with Sr. Rose, the meanest nun at St. Therese.
A short tyrant with inexplicably dyed red hair, Sr. Rose routinely terrorized her third grade class with knuckle rapping discipline and a frozen frown. Conveniently, our school stood steps away from Mrs Karl’s bread, a Hostess outlet full of happy snacks like Ding Dongs, Cupcakes and Suzy Qs.
For less than a quarter, we could stop in on our way home from school and choose from a wide selection of Hostess and Dolly Madison snacks.
With our school’s basement a certified bomb shelter and disturbing images from Vietnam haunting our rabbit-eared television sets, we children of the 70’s found comfort in a cake rumored to have an infinite shelf life.
Twinkies weren’t the tastiest treat around, but they were the most reliable.
More than 30 years later, Molly does not share my fondness for the line of Hostess snacks and I don’t remember ever buying them for my children.
Still, the sudden end of Hostess caught us off guard.
We launched our sweet little sendoff because, in some ways, the end of Hostess marks the end of an era.
