No. 234 – The Battle of Evermore

Performer: Led Zeppelin

Songwriters: Jimmy Page Robert Plant

Original Release: Led Zeppelin IV

Year: 1971

Definitive Version: Destroyer, 1977.

Following my initial success in my Business reporting class at Medill in 1987, I settled in for a quarter that was solid, if not as good as what I’d experienced at Wabash. Still, it beat walking the fine line between flunking out of school.

After a few weeks of classroom work in Evanston, the class was let loose on the Chicago community. Everyone had to choose two beats from which he or she would produce three stories per week. I chose computers and candy.

I took computers, because, well, it wasn’t personal finance, which I wasn’t interested in covering, and it seemed to be a “newsy” beat. This still was the dawn of the personal computer—the easy-to-use Mac was only 3 years old and the first true Windows PC had yet to arrive, and I was into it. It was an easy pick.

It ended up being a not-so-easy beat to cover on a regular basis in Chicago. All the really juicy stuff was happening in California, and we were directed to make our coverage local. One story I did involved talking to local retailers about the new hot computer—the Compaq 386. It was faster than anything ever seen before, which means that it probably had about a hundredth of the power of the phone in your pocket.

Otherwise I had to get a little creative. For example, one story I did was about a company called IRI, I think, that worked on retail scanning technology—a different type of nascent computing. What I covered actually was more interesting in retrospect, now that I think about it.

But as far as I was concerned, my main beat was candy. I chose it for one simple reason: Leaf Gum, which made Donruss baseball cards, was located in Bannockburn, which is a far-flung Chicago suburb. I figured I could get several stories and perhaps a tour out of that.

Imagine, then, my disappointment when I called Leaf only to learn that the Donruss office and plant were located in Tennessee. Tennessee?! But it says on the back of Donruss baseball cards, Bannockburn, Ill. Rats. My grand dream of writing about baseball cards had to wait for another time.

Actually, the candy beat wasn’t all bad, because if Donruss wasn’t really a local concern, Brach’s candy definitely was. Brach’s is still around isn’t it? You don’t see Brach’s candies as much as you used to. Back in the day, Brach’s bins were everywhere: You got your bag, shoveled in the candy and paid by weight.

Anyway, the Brach’s plant definitely was in Chicago. (Part of the long-abandoned plant was famously blown up in The Dark Knight.) In February 1987, when Destroyer was my L-riding music, I finagled a tour of that plant.

The plant was—and what remains of it still is—located on the Far West Side, close to the end of the green L line. The surrounding neighborhood was scary, and it hasn’t gotten any better in the subsequent 26 years. I wasn’t afraid as I drove my car out there on a cold, gray afternoon, but I felt self-conscious.

I don’t remember the name of the vice president whom I interviewed and who conducted me on the tour, but he was very welcoming. We talked at length about the company and my schoolwork, and then we hiked around the massive manufacturing plant.

And manufacturing is the right word. There was no river of chocolate or suds-powered vehicles, to say nothing of Oompa Loompas. Heck, there wasn’t even massive rooms filled with candy corn—the quintessential Brach’s candy—because it wasn’t in season.

No, it was in many ways like any manufacturing plant with lots of conveyor belts and diligent workers decked out in overalls, caps and goggles. The only difference was at the end of the line were chocolate stars, which taste far better fresh off the conveyor belt than they did in the grocery store.

I had more than enough for my story—two stories really—by the time we wrapped up just before quittin’ time. But the veep had a surprise waiting for me back in his office when we returned: It was a basket full of various Brach’s candies for me to take home and enjoy. It wasn’t Donruss baseball cards, true, but I certainly wasn’t complaining.