Paula Spencer Kephart, Class of '65 - That would be Claxton's fruitcake. My Mother still buys those and loves them. I like the ones sold by the Amish. Theirs have more nuts and fruit, but that is an old habit of Mother's that she will continue to buy every Xmas she is still around and I hope that is a lot more. She has two at her house right now. Lives alone and will eat both of them. Still won't get overweight. Don't know how she does it, but she loves those Claxton fruitcakes.
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Jim Myrick, Class of '66 - The fruitcake is a Claxton. A long time staple of the Christmas season. There is one in my fridge now.
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Craig Bannecke, Class of '65 - The mystical photo is of a Claxton Fruit Cake. Anyone growing up in the 60's has to know what that is. Possessing a Claxton Fruit Cake was a right of passage to Christmas in our youth. Whether you liked them or not your parents bought them. They were usually sold as fund raisers for local schools and organizations and were in nearly every grocery store in town. I think the Whoville Choir use to sell them and we sure had them at Winn Dixie. We always had them at our house but I never saw one get completely eaten. I use to slice off a piece and pick the nuts out of it and throw the rest away. By spring my mother would usually throw away what ever remnant of the cake was left in the refrigerator. Then that next Christmas, the process would begin again. I haven't seen one in a while but I believe they are still around.
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Eddie Jones, Class of '66 - That looks a lot like the “Claxton Fruit Cake” made in Claxton, GA. about 40 miles from me.
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Michael Griffith, Class of ‘66 - The mystery fruitcake is a “Claxton” fruitcake, made right here in Georgia. Claxton, Georgia is located in south Georgia, near Fort Stewart and Savannah. Claxton touts itself to be “world famous for its fruitcakes.”
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Gary Hatcher, Class of '66 - The fruit cake was made by Claxton. I also sold many of these as a Boy Scout. Did my scouting in the mountains of East Tennessee where I lived before moving to Huntsville in December of '63.
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Bruce Fowler, Class of '66 - Most Illustrious Editor and Author, if I be not mistaken, the mystery photo is of Claxton Fruit Cake (R), https://www.claxtonfruitcake.com/, which is still in business. This single item is the primary source of the contemporary custom know as regifting whereby one is given a gift that can be neither used nor sold nor, for some poorly understood reason, discarded. The only remaining option is to give it to someone else. At one time it was considered poor form to regift to the original gift giver but this constraint may have eroded?
The conjugate question raised by the photograph is whether fruit cake is (a) actually digestible and (b) has any positive food value at all? One of my office mates in graduate school, a tall, lanky chap of Jewish heritage with neandertal genes (red hair) from New Jersey held the opinion that home made fruit cake was subsidized by the band-aid industry which was then in economic difficulty, supposedly because of the increasing popularity (?) of store bought fruit cake. I have since entertained the hypothesis that this outlook was regional and explains the periodic popularity of that region in television programming. All of this was kept quite tacit inasmuch as his mother sent an annual Chanukah care package of delicacies that he shared with his fiends of whatever persuasion, including Southrons who were at that time all viewed as being Walliceite racists.
I wish to also indicate deep disappointment at your experiences at the Elks club. My father was an Elk and I am happy to not have to tell him that they have become a hotbed of anti-capitalism. Given the excellence of your book the event may only be considered civilization's loss.
In eager anticipation of the lengthening of days.
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Dianne McClure, Class of '64 - I think the name of the fruitcake is Claxton although i am not positive. Daddy used to buy them but that has been a long time ago.
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Randy Goodpasture, Class of '66 - This weeks Mystery Photo is a Claxton Fruit Cake. My father used to sell them every Christmas for the Masons. Bottom line is they made better doorstops than dessert fare.
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Barb Biggs Knott, Class of ‘66 - The picture is of a Claxton Fruit Cake and you can still find them in quite a few places. I buy them every year as a stocking stuffer. I purchased mine this year at Wal-Mart but I’ve also seen them at the grocery stores.
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Suzette Yost von Kamp, Class of '59 - It is Claxton fruit cake. Still made and still sold
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