The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 53

Sunday, November 12, 1978 The Sun, San Bernardino, California Section niversity center probes depths of consumer concerns scenario for moving from city to suburb education, space, safety and all that. We know less about moving to the country." One study was begun 10 years ago to find out more than census data can tell about who gets ahead and who falls behind in the economic race, and why. It's the Panel Study on Income Dynamics, more familiarly known around the center as "the 5,000 families" after the number that started out in it. Although half the original families have dropped out, 6,200 families are involved now, New families formed by children of the original participants are included. The study is still going strong, six volumes of findings and five volumes of data later.

One conclusion, stated by Duncan (Continued on F-3, Col. 1) career may be happy but not satisfied." He snorts at the symphony counters. A Nebraska study ranked eight states on such objective measurements, with seven of them in the West. All the lowest-ranked states were in the south. Campbell's 1971 study whose 1,881 participants were too few to permit a state-by-state breakdown showed little difference in personal satisfaction between the south, the central states, the east and the west.

He's now analyzing a 1976 repeat of the 1971 study. Studies extending over years, repeat studies and re-analyses are typical of the center's in-depth work. Campbell wants to find out more about the rush to live in the countryside. "This is a dramatic reversal of a long-term trend. It's easy to spin a By GUY DARST Associated Press ANN ARBOR, Mich.

fAP) Did you know: Men kill more time on the job than women? The part of the country you live in makes little difference in how happy you are? The biggest single reason for falling into poverty or climbing out of it is a change in the composition of the family. These observations come from an unusual team surveying the social terrain, part of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. For 32 years, social scientists at the institute's Survey Research Center have been marking the lines of what we think, what we do, how we feel in a sense, who we are. The center is best known for its And the study concluded that the actual number of hours on the job fell by 3.6 percent from 1965 to 1976, which might account for about one-third of the slowdown in American productivity from 1965 to 1976. "We must be tentative about this," says Greg Duncan, an economist who helped direct the work.

"Actually, the surprising thing is that it hasn't gone down very much." Angus Campbell, a psychologist and former director of the center, has been working for years on ways to measure what has come to be called the "quality of life." Instead of counting books in the library and symphony concerts per capita, he asks about happiness and satisfaction. They are not the same: "Happiness does not have a judgmental quality to it. A new widow may be satisfied with her life but extremely unhappy. A young man starting a monthly polls of consumer sentiment, with results such as October's finding that consumer pessimism has not been deeper since 1974-75 published quarterly. Other organizations take polls, watch the economy, study election returns.

But the depth of the center's staff, its links with a major university, freedom from commercial or governmental restraints, and ability to burrow into a subject for years make it unique. The Census Bureau, for example, cannot ask people how much they goof off at work, but the center can ask, and did. In a study of how people spend their time, it had 376 workers keep a minute-by-minute diary of four different days. Among the findings: women on the average spent only half the time on the job "relaxing" that men did. Satisfying Cohort's sweet tooth for over 50 years 4 I AY 4 tffJ YY I i -1Y 41 1 JsJ.h-UiL candymakers working at a central location and delivering the candy to the various stores by truck," he said.

"In that way, the stores had no mess to clean up." Aside from delivering the candy, the elder Laymon and his partner would clean the showcases and stock them, leaving enough behind to restock cases until the next delivery. "They got through the Depression in real good shape," Laymon said. "People eat more candy in bad times than in good, because it's a treat and a relatively inexpensive one. It's something you don't really have to have, but it's a way to reward yourself." Candy consumption per person has dropped from 21 pounds per person per year during World War II to about 17 pounds per person today. "One good thing about being in the candy business," he said, "is that your volume increases during bad times." And, in a time when the small businessman is being squeezed out at every turn, Laymon marvels that the family business has thrived as long as it has.

"It's almost impossible to keep up with all the rules and regulations required by federal, state, county and city governments and their intervention in tax situations," Laymon said. His father and Nelson worked together at 6th and streets until Nelson's death in 1933, after which he ran the business alone until Lon Laymon joined him in 1946. The Laymons built the new plant in 1958, three years before the elder Laymon's death, and moved from the original 2,000 square foot plant to the new 9,000 square foot building. From the time of his father's death in 1962, Laymon ran the business alone until 1971, when his own son, Kenneth, began working there as a laborer. In 1973, Laymon, his son and son-inlaw Tim Applen formed a corporation.

Kenneth, like his two sisters, De-nise and Linda, began working with their father at a very young age. At the age of 7, Kenneth was already helping with the scrubbing and cleaning. At the age of 9, the girls began stuffing candy boxes with cellophane, Laymon said. By CONNIE RUTH Sun Staff Writer COLTON How sweet it is! No, this isn't a story about comedian Jackie Gleason. It's a tale about peanut brittle and pecan rolls and chocolate honeycomb in short, about a candy company located at 444 Colton a business that survived not only the Great Depression, but World War II.

The year was 1927. Ernest Laymon and Peter Nelson were working for a Riverside candy store. One day, after a disagreement with the store owner, the two men decided to quit and go into business for themselves Laymon's son, Lon, recalls the business his father and a friend established many years ago at 6th and streets. "They started the business with $65 between them," Laymon said, "and they had families to feed and no assets." Nelson was 50 at the time and his father, 45, Laymon recounted, seated in his office above the candy shop and factory. The sugary sweet smell of candy permeated the small room and blended with the scent of tobacco from Laymon's pipe.

"Pappy was an old farmer I take my hat off to him," Laymon said proudly. He explained that his father, who started out as a farmer in Iowa, lost everything he owned through a bank failure. The elder Laymon brought his family to California, with Riverside as his goal, but ran out of gas in Colton, or so the story goes, and that's where they decided to put down roots. Laymon went on to tell what it was like to be a candymaker in the early 1900s and described them as "a bunch of drunken old bums who thought they were artists." In those days, Laymon said, can-dymakers traveled from town to town, working one or two days in each shop. When Laymon Candy Co.

was established, Laymon said, there were three candy outlets in Colton, seven in San Bernardino and five in Redlands. "These candymakers would go into a drugstore, for example, make up the candy the owner ordered, then take off their aprons, leave the mess and move on to the next job," Laymon said. "Pappy conceived the idea of Ki niroimwcrrrrtinvTOiriwiii 1 'j, -rtmnJgiL 1 It Staff phetei by Connl Ruth Lon Laymon couldn't have a sweeter job Laymon's sister, Lucile Elser, is saleslady in the candy shop up front. Laymon's wife, Winifred, stays pretty close to home, but does most of the typing for the business, he said. It's a long time since Ernest Laymon and Peter Nelson pooled their $65 to start a business of their own.

You might say the vision they had couldn't have turned out sweeter. Laymon said he plans to keep the business small. "We have no salesmen on the road," something he does himself on occasion, "and we're turning away work." Of the 22 employees, some of whom are family members, Charlie Burns has been there the longest 35 years. Next in line is Ralph Carlos, a 30-year employee; Glenna Mann, 22 years, and Natalie Mann, 18 years. Because of this, Laymon one day received a call from the school district, warning him that he couldn't work his youngsters there without a work permit.

"I told them 'No! not for my own he said. Soon afterward, a government representative came to call, again warning Laymon about working his children without a permit and saying he would be fined $3,000 and 30 days in jail for each offense, or a total of $9,000 and 90 days in jail. "I wrote him a check for $9,000 and said, 'Now, you son of a bitch put me in The man got up and walked out and said he would stop me from shipping out of state." But, Laymon added, nothing of the sort occurred, "and, incidentally, he didn't take my check either." Today, Laymon said his candy shop and factory are doing well over a million dollars a year in business. He compared this to about $35,000 a year in 1946. The number of employees has also grown, from four in 1946 to 22 today, he said.

Laymon said his business supplies 280 stores in 11 western states, Alaska and Hawaii. "We make all the candies the big guys v-' i ly YtY 3 hi nmf J. inr lJ-: can't make with machines and buy products from the big factories for resale to retail stores," he said. And what are some of the candies made in his factory? There is fudge, nut brittles, taffy, pecan rolls, English toffee, nut barks and clusters, dipped chocolates and roasted nuts. Items bought from larger companies include orange slices, jelly beans and spice drops, to name a few.

Yes, there are plans for expansion, some day, Laymon said. "I own the Safeway property, purchased it in 1968, and I plan to use that site for distribution and retain this location for manufacturing," he said. The busiest season on chocolate items, Laymon said, is from Oct 1 through May. "During the summer, we shift over to brittles, fudges and taffy. Actually, we do more tonnage during the summer.

"Used to be we'd nearly close down summers." he said, "because there were no air conditioners then in the factory or in cars or homes," a predicament for anyone in the candy business. s- YT vV- Andy Uvillado stirs a batch of nut brittle Eileen VViyninger packs pecan rolls A A rrriirr- -r, lir jrH rl r1.O..jfl.jrtj uti.tm rt 0T1 rt ml pTTl itn iT nil tt rli ifT ih nn arTTi ith I'll if rr nn an.