Hershey, Pennsylvania

There’s an old saying:  The difference between success and failure is this:   A failure is a person who stays down.   A success is a person who refuses to stay down. By that measure, Milton Hershey certainly was a success.  His first two attempts at candy companies did not end well.  Hershey made it big on the third attempt, though, and his company became an American icon.  This blog is a story about the town that bears his name and a great Pennsylvania destination:  Hershey, Pennsylvania.

I’m not a chocoholic, but I love Hershey, Pennsylvania and the story of the Hershey company.  One man had an idea about a new candy, and he worked tirelessly to build the candy company that bears his name.  As he was doing so, he built a town designed to be a better place for his employees.  I’d say he succeeded on all counts.

I first visited Hershey back in the 1960s.  My Dad was a world-class trap shooter and our traveling was nearly always related to a shoot someplace in the northeastern United States.  Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Ohio, New Hampshire, and more.  Mom, my sister, and I would visit nearby attractions, and the town of Hershey was one of them.  Two things stood out in my mind:  The streetlights were styled like Hershey’s kisses, and the entire town smelled like chocolate.

The streetlights hadn’t changed (they were still the same Hershey’s kisses), but I was surprised when we arrived:  I couldn’t smell the chocolate I remembered.  My aunt lives near Hershey and she told me that changes daily.  It’s a function of what the Hershey plant is doing that day, the wind, and maybe a few other factors.   We missed the chocoholic aroma (which was the bad news), but it still occurs sometimes (that’s the good news).  I’m guessing tighter emissions requirements might be playing a role here, too.

There are several things to see and do in Hershey, but the factory tour I remembered as a kid is no more (more on that in a second).  There are things to do in Hershey, starting with just walking around the town and taking in its beauty.  There are also Hershey attractions, including the Hershey Museum and the current Hershey factory tour.   We hit the Hershey Museum first.

I had seen the large Hershey smokestacks on the way into town and I wanted to get a photo.  While my wife and sister were taking in the Hershey Museum, I left a bit early and walked up the street to get a better photo of the smokestacks.

Next up was the factory tour.  I thought I remembered the factory tour from my visit in the 1960s, but I either remembered it wrong or I was projecting what I wanted into a memory that had dropped a few digits over the decades.  I thought we would see the actual Hershey factory.  That’s what I wanted.  I’m a manufacturing guy, and I’ll never pass on any opportunity to get into a manufacturing facility.  But the factory tour I remembered as a kid had been replaced by a theme park ride.  The Hershey factory tour involved getting into little cars that were pulled along a track and going through a dumbed-down Disney-like version of what the real factory looks like.   I suppose Hershey has to protect its proprietary process technology, but still, I was hoping for an engineering text and what I got was a Saturday morning cartoon.

Upon entering the factory tour building, you have to first go through what has to be the world’s largest candy store.  And yeah, we bought some candy.  It’s not like we needed it. But we were there.  When in Rome…you know the rest.

Not surprisingly, after you exit the factory tour little cars, you go through the candy store again.  Wow, there sure was a lot of candy.  I saw varieties of currently-available Hershey’s candies I’d never seen before.  It was not a total bust:  I had my Nikon and the displays were more than colorful.

Hershey’s owns Reese’s.  Reese was a guy who worked for Hershey, and then started his own company.  Then Hershey’s bought Reese’s.  There are Reeses peanut butter cups with peanut butter.  There are Reese’s peanut butter cups with peanut butter and potato chips.  There are Reese’s peanut butter cups with peanut butter and pretzels.  There are Reese’s peanut butter cups with peanut butter and marshmallows.  There are Reese’s peanut butter cups with peanut butter and, well, you get the idea.

You might be surprised to hear this, but I gained a few pounds on this trip.  As soon as I finish this blog, I’m headed to the gym where I’ll spend quality time on the treadmill.  I need it.

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The best kept secret in Hershey?  For starters, there are Pennsylvania’s back roads.  If you get off the freeways, just about any country road makes for a magnificent ride.  I rode many of these roads more than 50 years ago when I was stationed at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, which is not too far away from Hershey.  I rode a 750 Honda Four in those days, and the roads are as magnificent today as they were then.  Folks, let me tell you: Pennsylvania is a motorcycling paradise.

Here’s another hidden gem:  If you want a world-class dinner (I’m talking fine dining raised to an exponent), there’s a restaurant called “What If” tucked away in Hershey.  It’s in the basement of a Howard Johnson motel, and if you don’t look for it, you won’t see it.  Trust me, it’s awesome.  I didn’t grab any food photos and that’s okay:  It’s my excuse for making plans to return some day.  But that’s in the future.  For now, it’s more time on the treadmill, and lots of it.

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