I am not much of a breakfast eater in spite of the fact that I know it’s the most important meal of the day. I have certainly read enough nutrition-type books to understand how one needs to get his or her body fueled and metabolism running by eating breakfast. I just never liked eating in the morning — though the rest of the day is certainly not a problem.

I have tried to convince myself that the several cups of coffee I drink each morning while reading the morning paper constitutes breakfast. After all, recent studies have shown that coffee is actually good for you. The coffee bean comes from a plant, so I consider that a vegetable, and I put cream or half-and-half in my coffee and that’s a dairy product. There are two food groups right there.

Unfortunately, even though the java jump-starts my brain it doesn’t really jump-start my sluggish metabolism or provide a whole lot of nutritional value.

On those rare occasions when I chastise myself for such poor eating habits I’ll go on a cereal-for-breakfast kick. My cereal of choice is Cheerios and has been for as long as I can remember.

I recently read a newspaper article (while drinking my morning coffee, of course) that said Cheerios turns 70 years old this year. That’s right; Cheerios first entered the marketplace in 1941 and has been a top seller ever since.

The plain yellow box of tasty O’s started life on grocery store shelves as Cheerioats, but got shortened to Cheerios in 1945. The article does not say why.

Reading the article brought back such great memories of my favorite cereal that I put down my coffee and went to the pantry to see if I had any.

Sure enough, there was the familiar yellow box that had been there for God only knows how long. Since the box had not been opened, there were no bugs nor were the little O’s stale. I decided to have a bowl while I finished the story.

They tasted great and, oh, the memories of Cheerios and Romper Room school when I was a little tyke. And, oh, the memories of trying to force my kids to eat Cheerios rather than the sugar-laden other varieties.

My kids, probably like most kids, couldn’t get enough Cheerios when they were babies and toddlers. I always felt okay about letting them snack on dry Cheerios. They were among the first adult food the little buggers ate, and they loved them.

As soon as they were old enough to be influenced by television commercials for cereals like Lucky Charms “with marshmallow bits” and “going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” they lost their appetites for Cheerios.

I don’t remember if Cheerios ever put toys in their boxes, but I do remember that much of my cereal buying was based on the free toys in the boxes of various other cereals.

I really didn’t want to buy the sugar-laden kind, but with such teasing and whining in the supermarket by one child or the other I gave in just to shut the kid up. Perish the thought that other customers might think that I was beating my child when I was only trying to get them to eat a more healthy cereal.

Back to the article: According to General Mills, the way they make Cheerios is by heating dough balls and shooting them out of a “puffing gun” at hundreds of miles per hour. Can you imagine that?

Another interesting tidbit in the story is that it would take 3,155,525,416 Cheerios to circle the Earth. Someone must have a lot of time on their hands, not to mention math skills, to have figured that out.

It was an interesting story, and I say “Happy Birthday, Cheerios.” And the way I see it I should just put down my cup of coffee and have a bowl right now. So, until next time … Cheerio!