In case you missed it, June 7 was National Donut Day. Most
donut locations either provided a free donut or a discount, so you had plenty
of options on how to take care of your “sugar fix.”
National Donut Day actually has its origins more than 100
years ago, when it was created to honor the women (known as Doughnut Lassies)
who served in the Salvation Army during WWI in 1917. Since cooking facilities
were rare in abandoned buildings, the women frequently fried donuts in soldiers’
helmets. The Doughnut Lassies were started by two volunteers (Margaret Sheldon
and Helen Purviance). Purviace once said, “ There was... a
prayer in my heart that somehow this home touch would do more for those who ate
the doughnuts than satisfy physical hunger."
National Donut Day brought back to me memories of a time long
ago, when Sharon and I belonged to a Catholic youth organization known as ACC.
Our group got permission from the council of St Pascal’s church to sell donuts
between masses on Sunday morning. It became a modest fund raiser for our little
group, but (more importantly) it gave us an opportunity to talk with members of
the parish who we otherwise may not have met.
ACC is an acronym for Active Christian Catholics. Although it’s
possible that many Catholic parishes have a youth ministry program, not all of
them do. According to the Pew Research Center, 1/3 of those raised Catholic are no longer Catholic. If you
do the math, that’s 10% of the US population, or around 30 million people. When
Pew studied those who have
changed religious affiliation, they found that over 70% of those who leave the Catholic
Church do so before age 24. As a result, churches that are experiencing declining
membership should seriously consider a youth ministry program in order to slow
down the exodus.
On March 27, 2002, a young man in Lacombe, Louisiana named
Clint Messina decided that one donut with his morning coffee just wasn’t enough
to satisfy his donut crave, so he and a friend stole a Krispy Kreme donut truck
in Slidell, Louisiana at 3:30 in the morning. The Krispy Kreme
deliveryman had left the engine of the truck running and its rear doors open
while he went into a convenience store to make a delivery. Upon returning to
find the truck and the hundreds of doughnuts inside missing, the deliveryman
called police, who pursued and caught up to the vehicle. Messina and his friend
then led police on a 15-mile chase, leaving a trail of doughnuts behind them as
they fled. The incident was the subject of nationwide media attention and, as
it involved cops and doughnuts, kept late-night comedians busy for several days.
Although Messina managed to escape after abandoning the donut truck, a later
incident finally brought justice.
On June 10, 2002, this day in 2002, he was arrested and
charged in the attempted murder of a police officer after driving into a patrol
car while attempting to flee from sheriff’s deputies. Soon after, police
discovered that he was already a wanted man due to “the great donut heist”. For
that crime, he was charged with auto theft and resisting arrest by
flight. Afterward, Lt. Rob Callahan of the Slidell police joked,
“We’re glad he’s off the streets, but this unfortunately means we’re going to
have to stop staking out all the local doughnut shops looking for him.”
We haven’t had any donuts in our house for YEARS, but our
abstinence hasn’t hurt the donut industry, since 10 BILLION are made each year in America. A chain called
LaMar’s is the oldest chain (going back to 1933), but Krispy Kreme is not far
behind, since it began in 1937. After Krispy Kreme went public in 2000, the
number of locations exploded to over 1000, so they are widely available. In
contrast, you can only find LaMar’s in 6 states. If you really LIKE donuts, the link below will take you to
the best donut chains in the country.
My favorite donut?
Tom Thumb, and that is likely due to the
fact that I grew up in Minnesota. The mini-donut machine was invented in California
in 1947, and the Tom Thumb Donuts company was established two years later. In
1952, John Desmond and his wife Janey brought Tom Thumb donuts to the Minnesota
State fair. A few years later, Desmond passed away, and two boys in Desmond’s
Minneapolis neighborhood (Ted Boecher and John Hanson) took over running the
stand. A few years after that, Hanson had a heart attack right in the main Tom
Thumb booth near ye Old Mill, which left Boecher to run the business on his
own.
Today, you can buy Thumb Thumb donuts online and shipped to
your home, but you just can’t beat the taste of a tiny donut fresh out of the
fryer.
What am I having for breakfast tomorrow?
Well, that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.
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