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A Brief History of Chewing Gum

It is not clear what it says about people that we have always found something to chew on, but at least we are consistent. Ancient Greeks chewed tree resin, as did Mayans and Native Americans. Archaeologists have found tree resin with teeth marks in it that date back more than 5,000 years in Finland and Sweden.

Early settlers were taught how to chew gum by Native Americans, and the Curtis family in Maine began harvesting spruce resin and selling it for a penny each in 1848. The Curtis family invented the modern form of chewing gum, which they named "The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum," by adding flavor to make it tastier and paraffin to make it softer.Dentist William Semple got a patent for his chewing gum formula in 1869, which consisted of rubber, sugar, licorice, and charcoal. Yummy. However, he never sold his gum on the mainstream market, leaving New Yorker Thomas Adams plenty of room. With the start of the American importation of chicle, a sap harvested from the sapodilla tree in the rain forests of Central America, the gum industry evolved yet again. Adams tried to make rain boots and toys using chicle as a substitute for rubber. Later, he simply spiced some chicle and called it "Adams New York Gum No 1 - Snapping and Stretching." and his gum became the first mass-produced chewing gum. Today, Black Jack is still available. The demand for chicle soon outstripped suppliers' capacity, so gum makers began to use paraffin and rubber as alternatives. Next up is the first big name in chewing gum history: William Wrigley, Jr. When Wrigley was selling scouring products at the time, he saw the huge potential in chewing gum, and he used his deft marketing skills to make a name for himself and his company—introduced Wrigley Spearmint Gum in 1893. While there were 12 other gum companies in the United States. None rose to fame as much as the Wrigley brand, in part because of tactics like placing a flashing billboard advertisement over Times Square. By the early 20th century, chewing gum was widely popular and fiercely competitive. With the advent of new manufacturing technology, gum began to appear on American store shelves and innovations continued to flourish. Fleer Chewing Gum's accountant accidentally created a batch of gum that was different from the rest, a recipe that became bubble gum. Dubble Bubble is the recipe that Fleer introduced to the world. There is now sugarless gum, organic gum, all-natural gum, bubble gum, and chewing gum available in various flavors and colors. Recently, Wrigley secured a patent for biodegradable gum. We have all your favorites here, so you can enjoy shopping knowing that by chewing on a piece of gum, you are continuing a very, very old tradition.

#canadian candies #holiday candies #bubble gums

“Ponylutionaries” - Bubble Gums & Word Twister

Here are two more non-player characters from our Equestria Pen and Paper RPG. In the town of Vanhoover we encountered these two members of the shady organization our characters were pitted against. The right one with the fancy uniform is Word Twister. He is a rather eloquent pony (played with a French accent during the game).

He is a bit of a zealot for the cause of that organization though he may not realize the ends of that organization don't necessarily match his lofty ideas. He has a very convincing personality who may twist the words of his oponent in a debate. It may be that he is leading kind of a "double life" since we suspect him of being identical with another pony called Silver Tongue who is an important figure in Vanhoover's administration and local policies. Note that his horseshoe bares the sign of that organization we are working against. On the left we got Bubble Gums. He is much less talkative than Word Twister and reminds a bit of BigMac in that respect. It has become clear however that, in spite of him not saying much he is thinking a lot about things and may be less naive about the organization they are in than Word Twister. At one point two of us tried to coax some information out of Bubble Gums by dressing up so he wouldn't recognize them and have more than just a few mugs of Cider with him. Throughout the talk it became ever clearer that Bubble Gums had actually seen through the masquerade but decided to give some information. He appears to be worried about his friend Word Twister of whom he said that he "used to speak a lot and say a lot but of lately he just speaks a lot and doesn't say much anymore". Bubble Gums also came as a bit of an Equestrian style fighter. We strive to avoid the amount of violence in the game found in traditional fantasy pen and paper RPGs. Bubble Gums apparently has a talent to make use of some kind of Chewing gum to pretty much trap oponents in that sticky stuff. At one point he managed to incapacitate the dragon of our group that way. We have by now found out that alcohol works to free anyone from that kind of trap as it turns the bubble gum porose. Both, Word Twister and Bubble Gums are involved in a political movement in Vanhoover that is called the "Ponylution". The allusion to the French Revolution is pretty obvious with the "fashion" these two are wearing.

Here is another version of the two without their fancy clothing and their cutie marks visible. A number of differently colored bubbles in case of Bubble Gums (an ancestor of Derpy perhaps?) and a page half black and half white with the letter A half white on black half black on white in case of Word Twister.