Harry Burnett Reese was born in 1879 to a Pennsylvania farming family. He married in 1900 and eventually had sixteen children. He took many jobs to support his family and in 1917 secured a job on the dairy farm of Milton S. Hershey. Yep, that Hershey.

He later moved on to work in the chocolate factory of Mr. Hershey and was inspired to make his own chocolates on the side. In 1928 he added what he called “penny cups” to his line-up which were essentially the peanut cups we love today. During all this time he was buying Hershey chocolate to make his confections and opened his own factory in the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania.

During World War II, material became scarce and he couldn’t keep up his entire line of sweets which included peanut clusters and chocolate covered dates so he focused solely on his very popular peanut butter cups. When he died in 1956 the Hershey Chocolate Company bought the enterprise from the Reese’s family and they have been providing Reese’s Cups to the world ever since.

So as I do on any National Day I encourage you to celebrate it by consuming the subject. Thank you Harry Burnett Reese and I hope we can dispense with that fable of those guys eating chocolate and peanut butter turning the corner and crashing into each other. I believed it when I was younger but I’m a grown up now. (But I sure love it when the Easter Bunny delivers egg shaped Reese’s Cups to my basket! Yummy!)

As always you can find more at http://www.walterthinnes.com and on Twitter @walterthinnes

#ATOBTTR update – Good job to my beloved Cincinnati Reds. You took the series with Cubs and now we need to tackle those Dodgers this weekend. We can do it. I know we can. Go Reds!