I like ‘old lady’ candy. I’ve liked it since I was a young lady. One of my college besties introduced me to Bridge Mix wayyyyyy back when we were freshman. We would walk from our dorm through the bookstore and stop at the candy counter and purchase ¼ lb. of Bridge Mix to share on the way to our study session at the library. (Pretty sure there wasn’t food allowed in the library but she leaned a little more towards “spirit of the law” on that rule and I leaned right along with her.)
For those of you who have been deprived of the pleasure of Bridge Mix (i.e. most of you), let me explain.
Bridge Mix is a mixture of milk (or dark) chocolate-covered nuts and creams and jellies and raisins – and sometimes even malted milk or toffee. And it is delightful.
Long ago, Hershey Foods used a type of bridge under their six conveyor belts that would tilt to remove fallen candies. Legend has it that a Hershey employee used to place those fallen candies in big containers around the facility. The staff of Hershey was allowed to treat themselves to the candies from the “bridge mix” and by and by the mixture was given the formal name of “Bridge Mix” by the new management.
(Apologies to all of you that thought the name had to do with older ladies gathering together to play Bridge.)
There are three things I find useful about this legend:
First, someone involved in the design of the factory knew that mistakes would be made and planned for it.
Second, someone at the factory knew that what was deemed ‘a mistake’ still had worth. (And was DELICIOUS!)
And Third, someone in management saw the ‘mistake’ as an opportunity. They figured out how to repurpose and repackage it for a bigger customer base that would pay for it and enjoy it.
Linda Bloom tells the story of “A very well known scientist who had achieved remarkable medical breakthroughs. He was being interviewed by a journalist who asked him what he thought made him different from the other scientists all of whom were equally brilliant, well trained and experienced, yet who didn’t have the same success as he. The reporter asked, ‘How was it that you were the one who consistently makes medical breakthroughs?’
The scientist thought for a moment and responded that he thought it all went back to when he was a very small child. One day he was trying to take a bottle of milk from the refrigerator and his little hands lost his grip and the entire contents poured out onto the floor. Instead of his mother getting mad at him, she instead said, ‘Oh my, what a wonderful mess you have made! I can’t remember when I ever saw such a huge puddle of milk! Now that it’s done, would you like to play in it before we clean it up?’
And so instead of feeling horrible about the ‘mistake’ he had made,” Linda goes on to say, “the little boy experienced the ‘catastrophe’ as something positive. After a short while, his mother then said, ‘Now when we make a mess like this, eventually we have to clean it up, so what would you like to use, a towel, a mop or a sponge?’
After they had cleaned it up, his mother said, ‘Now what we have here is a failed experiment of how to take a big bottle of milk out of the refrigerator with two little hands. So now let’s go outside and fill up the bottle with water and let’s experiment and see if you can figure out how to carry it without dropping it.’ And so they did.”
We are not meant to do things perfectly. Human beings, by design, are going to mess things up sometimes. Maybe even a lot of the time. We are also meant to figure things out. Little things, big things, messy things.
Bridge Mix started out as a combination of dropped candy – a big, messy mistake. But for me, it will forever be associated with my freshman year of college and my first time living away from home. It added a little joy and it cemented a friendship – a ¼ lb. at a time.
I can’t wait to hear about the way you are thinking about mistakes and figuring out how to reframe, repurpose, or refigure them. If you need help, I’m available!
And if you need Bridge Mix, I suggest See’s.
You’re welcome. 😉
