My paper this morning did not contain the main section. I got the international business section twice, and the real estate section as well. I also got two copies of "The City" the section about, well, the city... The main article here is called Out, Damned Spot. Deborah Stead found some fascinating facts about the beginnings and the endings of Chewing Gum. Of course all of it is somehow New York related. After all, Chewing Gum, as we know it, was invented here by Thomas Adams. (He received a patent for it on February 14th 1871). The very first Chewing Gum Factory was in lower Manhattan on Vesey Street (1876). The packages sold back then contained 200 (!) pieces and featured an illustration of the area near City Hall and the slogan: "Adams’ New York Chewing Gum, Snapping and Stretching." They cleverly left out the "Sticky, and will never get out of your hair, or the pavement" part. New York these days is completely covered in silver dollar sized black spots (some are pink, but this only means that they are less than 24 hours old). I actually use the density of the spots on the platform in the subway station here, to gauge where the doors of the Subway car will be. Some of the spots change their shape over time, like in the pedestrian tunnel between the 2 and 3 trains and the L and the F train on 14th street. The dots there are all about 4 inches long because of the decline and the heavy foot traffic.
There are places in New York City where the black spots are not welcome, of course. Grand Central Station with its marble floors is one of them. I have seen the brave men with their razor blade scrapers working away at the dried Double Mints and the Juicy Fruits. A tough job.

Do you remember your very first chewing gum? I think my very first gum was called Donald Duck. It was a brand sometimes available in Poland in the 70’s, as far as I remember. It contained little picture stories (4 panels or so) with Disney characters. Exciting stuff. The actual gum and the packaging were pretty much like the American Bazooka bubble gum.
We would later also buy chewing gum in Hungary. That would be a journey equivalent to the f to Australia, just to get some round sugary chewing gum. My first Wrigley Spearmint came from a Pewex store. These were shops in Poland where no Polish currency was accepted, only Dollars and Deutsche Mark. Fascinating, isn’t it? My mother bought me a 5 pack of gum in Kraków. I could not figure out why there was a message on each one of the sticks suggesting that we should love our environment. I spent days chewing every one of the sticks. (I am serious, I would save them over night, next to my bed.)
I did not try the trick some children in my school showed off proudly. It was the great hit in second grade to make brightly colored chewing gum. They would break a colored pencil and chew the inside with the chewing gum. This did not look healthy even then. (I also did not eat erasers as some kids did.)
It happened from time to time that the chewing gum would just disintegrate in my mouth. It would not be chewable at all, just turn into this mixture of tiny chewing gum particles what I then had to spit out. I just recently was told that this was a very clear indicator of extreme dehydration. Interesting.
The strangest "chewing gum" I ever had was probably this strange thing a friend’s made for us when we were camping in the woods in southern Poland. He somehow roasted tree sap for us and then gave us this weird looking blackish gook on a stick. It was supposed to be this really wonderful chewing gum. All I can remember is spitting it right out behind the next tree.
I know this is in no way related to the article about Chewing Gum in New York City. Did I mention that Chris posted a link to the information about Chewing Gum and New York on his site back in May? Take a look: chrisdiclerico.com
So what is this Superbowl about?