Bring Back Bess Eaton

I remember when my sister and I were little, our mom would take us to The Whole Donut in Glastonbury every Saturday morning.  Every week we would get the same thing; a glazed and Boston creme for me, and two sprinkle donuts for my sister, and double dutch chocolate milk for both.  We didn't mind that the donuts smelled and tasted like cigarettes, that was our special treat for the week and we looked forward to it.

Then there was the sad day that The Whole Donut closed, and we started going to the Dunkin Donuts in the Zaire's parking lot.  We didn't like their donuts as much, but we persevered.  We kept on ordering the usual, but we were not big fans of this new-fangled Dunkin Donuts.

When we got older, we stopped going to work with our mother on Saturday, we had friend and job obligations.  By that time, Glastonbury had two Dunkin Donut stores, neither of which we visited.  I preferred bagels at Bagel Boys.  When I started college, I started going to Bess Eaton on Prospect Avenue in Hartford every morning.  Those donuts and pastries were great, loads better than that rinky-dink Dunkin Donuts in Glastonbury.  I loved the coffee rolls, and my freshman 10 turned into the sophmore 20.  Then there was another sad day in pastry history when Bess Eaton closed, and magically turned into rubble one day.  I was devastated.  Thank goodness for Lox, Stock and Bagels at Bishop's Corner.  I nursed my Bess Eaton wounds there for the rest of my undergrad career.

In any case, that one rinky-dink Dunkin Donuts turned into a huge drive-thru across the street, followed by the addition of another Dunkin Donuts near the Hebron Ave/New London Tnpk intersection.  I didn't notice as much until the Bess Eaton in Salem died.  By then I was frequenting the shoreline.  Up the street from my boyfriend's house was another Bess Eaton.  How did this one find a way to survive?  I was overjoyed.  I would have to marry this guy, I thought, so I could have an endless supply of coffee rolls right up the road from his house.  So I married him and moved in.  And then about a year after, my sacred mecca closed.  I was robbed!! 

I realized that I needed to find another pastry shop.  I was forced to return to Dunkin Donuts after all those years.  At first, their coffee was good and so were their pastries.  Then they introduced their bagel line, which were okay, except they were very doughy--definitely not a Bagel Boys bagel.  We had one Dunkin Donuts on Route 1.  Then a couple of years passed, suddenly we had three in a mile span.  Mystic went from having no Dunkin Donuts to having four in a mile radius.  You could walk to all four stores.  Something was wrong here.  Dunkin Donuts seemed to have been taking over the world.  Their coffee started sucking and their donuts got smaller.  The bagels got doughier, and their pastry selection disappeared. 

Now I hate Dunkin Donuts and everything they stand for.  My America doesn't run on Dunkin, never has.  I would rather pay through the nose at Starbucks for a coffee than go there.  I would go every Thursday morning to get donuts for my son and my grandmother, now I will not go back there anymore.  It wasn't enough that they had to take over the world and force my cherished Bess Eaton out of business, they had to steal my credit card number while they were at it!  So I'm sorry Mikey and Gram, I'm going to have to find another place to get your donuts.  I refuse to take part in their communist regime.