My dad was a salesman for Brach Candy when I was a kid. Having your dad sell candy was a pretty cool thing to tell your friends, something that really hit home when they’d come over to our house and see boxes of candy samples in the house. When he was done with the samples, we’d get to eat the candy. Needless to say, our house was a popular stop on Halloween.

Over the years, the names of many of my dad’s colleagues became familiar. I still remember Herb Gibbs, Walt Jorgenson, Bill Slagle, Art Jalove, and others. Early on, though, there was one name that stood out above the rest, MISTER Robinson. Unlike the others, I don’t recall ever knowing his first name. It was always MISTER Robinson. The “mister” was so ingrained in my head as a little kid that to this day when I hear someone referred to as mister, I sometimes flash back to the first mister I remember, MISTER Robinson.

I’m not sure I have the following memory right, and I may find out from my older brothers, especially Scott, the oldest, who would remember best, but I’m pretty sure we would occasionally visit MISTER Robinson at his house. This would be in Omaha, where I was born and where we lived at the time, so it’s pretty early in my life. We relocated to the Seattle area in 1974, just before I turned 11, so I think this is probably in the late 1960s when I was 5 or 6. We’d get dressed up and drive across town, head down a tree-lined street, and pull into what seemed, to me, like a mansion. I remember the house being brick and there being some kind of hired help inside. The only other thing I remember is that MISTER Robinson wore glasses and seemed small in size. That surprised me because my dad was so deferential to him. Somehow I thought MISTER Robinson would be larger than life in size, not just larger than life in his influence in our lives.

Recently, MISTER Robinson’s influence took new shape as I began digitizing 30 years of newsletters my dad and mom created to keep former Brach employees connected. Among the Brach-related papers my dad saved, I discovered several specifically about MISTER Robinson. And now as an adult, I think I finally understand why my dad regarded him with such reverence.

“The person who trained and taught me the candy business was Edward ‘Brach’ Robinson.”

The first paper I found was an article my dad wrote about his relationship with MISTER Robinson that was printed in the Winter 1991 issue of a magazine called Candy Bar Gazebo. I learned that MISTER Robinson’s full name was Edward Robinson. He was Brach’s Western Division Manager and in December 1959 he interviewed my dad in Denver, where my parents and baby Scott were living. My dad was 25 at the time. Scott had been born in August so my dad was looking for something more stable than the traveling sales job he’d been doing. MISTER Robinson hired him. The article also mentions that MISTER Robinson retired from Brach in 1970 and that my father succeeded him as Division Manager in 1971.

Next in the documents were things related to MISTER Robinson’s death. These include the bulletin from his memorial service, a typed copy of the eulogy, and a one-page summary of the service itself. There was also a small newspaper obituary. I learned that he died in his home in 1992 and it sounds like he had suffered from Alzheimer’s for quite some time. His wife Lida had died in 1985. From the papers, I learned that after Lida died, “Eddie went downhill real fast.”

The Robinsons did not have any children and the one survivor listed was MISTER Robinson’s sister, Anne. I did some digging and found that Anne died in 1998, leaving me to wonder who remembers MISTER Robinson. Obviously, I do, hence this blog post. Given how important he was to my father, I feel the desire to honor him. In a handwritten draft of a letter my dad sent to someone named Mr. Randall, I found this paragraph:

“Ed Robinson was the second most important man in my life, second only to my father. He was my mentor for many years. He painstakingly taught me the candy business during my eleven year apprenticeship. In so doing, he taught me a great deal about life.”

The respect my dad had for MISTER Robinson must have gone both ways. In among these papers is a letter addressed to my father from Jack W. Marer, Attorney at Law with the heading: “Re Estate of Edward Robinson.” The closing paragraph states: “With his usual generosity, Eddie remembered many people, including you with a tax free gift of $5,000.00. This will be paid in due time.”

Thanks, MISTER Robinson. Your influence lives on. On Saturday, I’ll tell a boy I mentor about you and my dad.

POSTSCRIPT:
MISTER Robinson died in 1992, 25 days after turning 89. I mention this because my dad also died at age 89, albeit just 17 days after. I can easily picture MISTER Robinson and my dad sharing old times at some heavenly candy sales convention, MISTER Robinson telling my dad that he outlived him by 8 days.