Jack Armstrong?!

 

“Mom!”  Elliot came down the stairs in a flurry.  “Mom!  You’ve got to get me a breakfast that’s worth a million!”

"What’s that?”  Elaine asked.  “We’re not made of money, so I don’t that we can afford it.”

“I’m guess he wants to eat scrambled eggs for breakfast,” I said dryly.  “Fortunately, our chickens don’t know the price of eggs these days or we’d be up a creek without a paddle.”

“No,” Elliot said with disdain.  “The breakfast I’m talking about is swell!  It has all of the heat burning units of hot cereal, but it tastes great!”

“What is it?”  Elaine asked with a little curiosity.

“Wheaties!”  Elliot said dramatically.  “You can have them bananas one day and the next day have them with blueberries!  It’s like having a different breakfast every day of the week.”

I shook my head.  “You’ve been listening to Jack Armstrong, haven’t you?”  I asked him.

“Yes,” Elliot said.  “I’ve heard all about the dragon’s eye ring and their journey to the Philippines.  I wouldn’t have known about Wheaties otherwise.”

I chuckled.  Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, was on the radio 80 years ago.  He had various adventures, crossing the ocean with his friends, Betty and Billy Fairfield and their Uncle Jim.  Through all of his adventures Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions, was there to encourage the listeners to eat more of the breakfast cereal.

I remembered listening to Jack Armstrong when I was a boy (on cassettes – I’m not quite old enough to have heard it when it was actually on the air).  I was dreadfully disappointed when the last cassette ended on a cliff hanger with Jack and his friends approaching a Philippine village.

Disaster was never far away from Jack, although fortunately, he always survived.

Elliot is probably our child who is most susceptible to the wiles of advertising.  He sees something in a promo, and he thinks his life would be infinitely better if he simply had this item.  So it was that he succumbed to 80-year-old advertising.

It is easy to laugh at such a response.  Adults don’t give in to the sort of advertising.  They are simply too smart.

And yet…

The world around us is constantly telling us that happiness comes in the form of material things.  Maybe it is the right house, or the right truck/car, perhaps it is a piece of technology like a brand-new phone or game console, but regardless of the object, if we could only get that thing, our lives would be so much better.

Solomon said, “Whoever loves money never has enough, whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.  This too is meaningless.”  (Ecclesiastes 5:10 NIV)

Elaine did get Elliot a box of Wheaties and he ate them for several breakfasts, but his life doesn't seem to have changed much since that monumental purchase. 

Maybe the price of a Wheaties box is a small price to pay for the discovery that true happiness doesn’t come in a box.  True happiness comes from knowing Jesus Christ and walking with Him.