In the “Jeopardy!” world, the answer would be “Those rich, fudgy, honey-slathered rings of chocolate that simply melted in your mouth.”

The question? “What’s your earliest memory of Dunkin’ Donuts?”

Indeed, the “new kid” on the local doughnut block, the one with the fancy, blinking neon sign right there at the old train station, assuming this boomer’s besotted, aging memory serves, was the place to go for those chocolate delicacies from the day I discovered it was there.

That must have been something like 49 years, 11 months and 28 days or so ago, because this cute, new shop that couldn’t spell its name correctly wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by this sweets-craving 7-year-old for long – especially since I popped in on Dad at work a lot, and he worked right next door.

So Wednesday, I’m pleased to shout-out a happy golden anniversary to my childhood chocolate supplier and join in celebrating its distinction as not only Nashua’s, but New Hampshire’s, first Dunkin’ Donuts franchise.

Ah, those aromatic chocolate honey-dips. A half-dozen for 39 cents, a dozen for 69. Of course, they weren’t alone on the little, angled shelf behind the nice, smiling lady clutching a wax-paper bag in one hand and long, wooden tongs in the other. The jellys were good, the frosted OK; plain, not really, though they were Dad’s favorite, especially the ones with a baked-in “handle” for – you guessed it – dunkin’ in your coffee.

While Dunkin’s chocolate doughnuts were to die for, many of us youthful aficionados stood by Cheddie’s, the iconic Nashua shop that the late Charlie Dobrowolski opened several years BD – Before Dunkin’s – to accommodate hungry passers-by who stopped in his Canal Street wholesale bakery.

Soon, Dobrowolski’s brothers, Eddie and Theodore, joined him, and together, they opened and ran, alternately, three shops on Canal, West Hollis and Temple streets.

Today, Charles Edward Dobrowolski, the man whose childhood nickname “Ched” inspired his father’s and uncles’ shops, remembers little about what appeared to be Dunkin’s rather low-key arrival in downtown Nashua.

“So, it’s their 50th?” Dobrowolski said Tuesday, taking a break from his post at Shaw’s in Main Street Marketplace. “I thought it was the mid-60s when they came in.”

Working at the family shops with thoughts of possibly taking the reins one day, the younger Dobrowolski recalls little, if any, concern among his father and uncles when the state’s Dunkin’s era dawned in Nashua.

“It didn’t really affect us much at all … by then, we had stores in Manchester and on the Milford Oval as well as Nashua,” he said.

Curiously, a search of old Telegraphs for a week before and after Dunkin’s Oct. 19, 1961, opening yielded no news stories nor paid ads about the event. But what the search did produce, somewhat amusingly, was several references to Cheddie’s – one of which was a Page 12 news story that just happened to run in the Thursday, Oct. 19, paper.

One ad trumpeted free coffee and “our delicious, light and delectable” honey dip doughnuts for 49 cents a dozen all day on Oct. 19 at both the Canal and West Hollis street locations. Two days later, the Canal Street shop hosted a stage show to celebrate “the shop where you buy freshness,” featuring a singer named Bob Dini; performer Mary Bradley, live from Boston’s Terrace Room; folk singers and – no kidding – Joe Sinatra and his orchestra.

As for Dunkin’s, longtime visitors will recall sitting on stools at the curvy counter, drinking 15-cent coffee out of china cups and munching dime doughnuts for as long as you pleased. A favorite post-football game stop, a central location for quick business or social meetups and even low-key first dates, a pause to refresh – and in winter, thaw out – for beat cops, or a warm, friendly haven for insomniacs and the lonely, Dunkin’s gradually wove itself into the fabric of downtown Nashua.

And if you’re a Nashuan, you’ve been there, whether you call it “Dunk One” (Nashua’s second shop on Amherst Street became “Dunk Two”), “Double D’s” or, simply, “42 Main.”

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 31, or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.