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When my children were growing up, from the late 1970's through the early 2000's (I don't have that many, only two , but they were born in 1977 and 1984, respectively), to help their schools, they had an order sheet upon which neighbors, friends, etc. would place orders for Christmas wrapping paper, bow-makers, Christmas cards, stationery and a variety of nuts and candies.

In helping them, by taking orders from the people at my workplace, I thought back to something years before, which needed no parent's aid in selling — "World's Finest Chocolate." I remember selling it for the grammar-grade band at Granite Quarry, and later, for the band at East Rowan Senior High.

These silver wrapped bars were the "gold standard" in sales for educational causes in those days. The bars came in a box, equipped with its own cardboard carrying handles. Even though they were wrapped in silver foil and additionally covered with an informational wrapper, if the young salesman put his nose into the box in the vicinity of those bars, it was met with a magnified aroma of chocolate (which still lingered, even when all of the bars had been sold). No prior ordering and signing of an order sheet was necessary. When that product appeared in front of the would-be customer, the only paper that needed to be dealt with was that one including silk threads in its making, upon which is printed the face of a man who was, is, and always will be: "First in the hearts of his countrymen!" If you showed up at a neighbor's house, the neighbor would see the box and immediately access their wallet or pocketbook to make a purchase. In a way, the look of that box was an advertisement.

One time our landlord was doing some work outside, and I approached him with "the chocolate;" whereupon, he bought a couple of bars right off, removed their wrappings and consumed them, later summoning me again while he was still on his ladder, in order to purchase a couple more, putting them in his back pocket.

I did see, a few years ago, a few present-day bars of that chocolate sitting next to a cash register at a sort of "stop-and-go" establishment. After I purchased one, the cashier said that she was helping her son sell it for his school (although he probably could have sold it himself with no problem), but bear in mind she only said that after I had already bought the bar. This just further served to prove that, even now, that brand of chocolate needs no sales pitch. The advertisement for its purchase is solely because it is within sight. Due to the differences of the economy of today, as opposed to that of my younger school days, the size of that chocolate bar has shrunk, but so has the worth of the piece of paper required for its purchase, so I guess it is fitting. The bar still seems to have the same delicious taste as in my school days, always aided by those ever-present almonds.

There was a coupon on the outside wrapper which was good for some kind of deal from Pizza Hut. I think that there was some similar type of offer in my days of that candy's selling, the nature of which I can't remember, but that's not important. I threw that more present-day wrapper away, just as I had thrown away all of the ones in my youth, because that chocolate bar, to me, was never a means to anything other than itself.

The lure of "World's Finest" was so powerful (perhaps due to some "primate chocolate thing," going back to some dim age), that often, it even "sold itself " to the seller. When the time came to count the money from the sale, if there was some discrepancy, my parents knew that it had nothing to do with the money. They understood that even if the sales figures of that most deliciously "fine" chocolate went wanting, I didn't.