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Day 15 – The Ugly Boston Spoon

Today, January 15, 2017, marks the 98th anniversary of the Great Molasses Flood in Boston, Massachusetts. 21 people were killed and many injured when a tank containing 2.5 million gallons of crude molasses broken open and sent a “tidal wave of death and destruction stalking through the North End,” as The Boston Globe reported at the time. 

Newspaper articles about the incident put the height of the wave at anywhere from 8 to 40 feet tall and the surge was clocked at an estimated 35 miles per hour. On hot summer days, local residents will swear to you that they can still smell molasses.

Great Molasses Flood, Boston, 1909
The aftermath of the Great Molasses Flood of 1909

I’ve already posted a picture of my really nice looking Boston spoon, so this crappy spoon made out of god-knows-what will have to do. 

It’s like the manufacturer said “Hey, what’s Boston known for?” and people in the office just threw out ideas until they landed on this hideous amalgamation of Paul Revere and the U.S.S. Constitution.

They can’t all be winners.

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Day 14 – The Tiniest Spoon

This adorable little spoon with a round bowl is a souvenir of the great state of Florida. Made by the Charles M. Robbins Company of Attleboro, Massachusetts (purveyors of fine souvenir silverware), this 2.5 inch tall spoon was used for serving salt at the dinner table. It is the tiniest spoon in my collection (not counting the Sea Lion Caves fork and spoon set).

And here are some fun facts about Florida:

  • Under Florida state law, it is illegal to sell your children.
  • Key West has more bars per capita than anywhere else in the nation.
  • Walt Disney World Resort is about 30,500 acres – about the same size as San Francisco.
  • Florida is not the southernmost state in the United States. That award goes to Hawaii.

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Day 13 – The Billie Possum Spoon

In 1908, William Howard Taft beat out William Jennings Bryan to become the 27th President of the United States. At the time, the popularity of the stuffed bear named “Teddy” after Taft’s predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, was helping mass toy manufacturing become a huge new market.

Despite the bear’s success, experts thought that the clamor for Teddy would die out when Roosevelt left office. Toy manufacturers, naturally, looked to the next president (Taft) for its replacement.

Enter Billie Possum.

Billie was born, oddly enough, at a banquet for president-elect Taft in Atlanta in January 1909. Taft requested that the main course of the banquet be “taters and possum.” After he ate the entire 18-pounds of possum (by himself, I assume), he was presented with a small, stuffed replica of the weird little marsupial and was told that this was Billie Possum, the answer to the Teddy Bear.

This spoon, made by R. Wallace and Sons of Wallingford, Connecticut, was one of the many pieces of paraphernalia created in attempt to make Billie Possum a “thing.” Unfortunately, the Billie fad proved to be almost as unpopular as Taft’s presidency and didn’t even last the year.

The bowl of the spoon is engraved with “Riverside,” which I’d like to think is in California, where my grandparents were married at the Mission Inn, but seeing as how there are 17 other towns and cities in the U.S. with that name, the origin of this spoon may be lost to time.

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