When I was a kid one of my favorite treats was a Ding Dong. Wrapped in tin foil was a round chocolate cake with chocolate icing and a cream filled centre. Yummy. They came in a box of 12 and my mother bought them each week for the school lunches she packed for me and my brother. That meant there were 2 left over Ding Dongs each week that I usually snacked on at some point during the week. It took my brother years to discover that the box held 12 Ding Dongs and not 10.
When I started Cloverdale Junior High I still got Ding Dongs each day for lunch. A girl I met said she used to go to school with a girl named Terry Lynn and her father owned the bakery in Langley where the Ding Dongs were made. Furthermore, he named his bakery after his daughter.
By the time I got to high school, and I went to a different school than the friends I'd grown up with, I met the infamous Terry Lynn when I was in Grade 12 riding the same school bus. I hadn't seen her before even though we were the same age. Apparently she'd taken a year off school because her family had been sailing around the world. I didn't know her all that well but she seemed friendly and nice and always said hi to me on the bus.
Sometimes during the eighties Ding Dongs ceased to exist, though a similar product King Dons emerged on the shelf next to the Twinkies where the Ding Dongs used to be. Later I found out that Terry Lynn Bakeries was sold to Labatt's. However Ding Dongs were still available at stores down in the states, offered by local bakeries. On every road trip I've taken to California I always stop at grocery stores to get a box of Ding Dongs. Never forgetting the chocolate cake and cream delight I'd enjoyed as a kid.
On our last trip to Washington this past April I bought a box of Ding Dongs. But this time I was disappointed. Even though it was well before the expiry date the cake seemed stale and the chocolate icing was not nice. I don't know for sure, maybe I'll still be tempted at some point down the road, but I'm thinking this might be the end of my love affair with Ding Dongs.
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