Now and Laters - For those of you that enjoyed “Now & Later’s” as a kid, have you tried any of today’s Now & Laters?  If you have, you will understand why I suggest they drop the “Later” from their name and just call them “Nows”.  They used to be very hard candy that lasted a long time and you really could enjoy both Now AND Later.  A small pack of Now & Laters would last all day.  If you buy the same small pack now, it will last about 5 minutes.  The candies are now really soft, kind of like a Starburst, and just melt quickly in your mouth.  I guess they needed to sell more candy.

Straws - Do you remember when you used to get a straw from a restaurant, and you could just hold it in your hand and hit it on the table or on your leg and the straw would shoot out of the paper?  Straws were very easy to open.  Nowadays, when you try that with a straw, you end up bending the straw because it does not want to slide out of the paper.  Then you end up having to tear a little hole in the top of the paper and try to pull the straw out with your teeth.  I don’t know what they changed, or why they changed it, but they need to go back to the old straw packages.

Chili’s - If you were one of Chili’s early customers, you would know that the early Chili’s were much different than today’s version.  I remember visiting my uncle in Houston when I was a kid, probably around 1980.  He told me he was going to take me to the really good new restaurant, Chili’s.  I had never heard of it.  We went, and the atmosphere was pretty similar to today, but the menu was very different.  First, the name itself, “Chili’s” did not refer to the Chili pepper you now see in their logo and on the restaurants.  It was originally named “Chili’s” because of their chili, which they would put on their hamburgers.  They would serve you a big hamburger topped with chili in a basket.  They were good… mmm.  They also had a “Verde Burger”, which they put guacamole on.  Also very good.  But you won’t find either of those on the menu today, however I believe they will put chili on a hamburger as a special request.  But it’s kind of strange that was their original namesake item, and now it’s not even on the menu.  Another thing Chili’s was known for was their french fries.  I’ve always considered myself an expert on french fries.  Chili’s was the first restaurant that I remember having “seasoned” fries.  It was a huge breakthrough in the fry kingdom.  Now pretty much all restaurant have seasoned fries, but it did not used to be that way.  And the original Chili’s burgers did not come with fries as they do now.  Back then, you would order a basket of seasoned fries which would serve 2 or 3 people.  I believe they also had some good onion rings that were also served in a basket that served multiple people.  So you would order a basket of fries and onion rings for everybody to share, family style.  I guess they changed their ways over the years, but sometimes I miss the old Chili’s.