Some people never throw anything away, according to Scott Bruce, who came to this breakfast food mecca looking for old cereal boxes to add to his collection. Sound flaky? ``Cereal boxes represent heroes of popular culture _ the grain gods, I call them,'' said Bruce, a Cambridge, Mass., collector who once started a lunch-box collecting craze. ``When a kid sits down with a bowl of his favorite cereal, he becomes one with his hero. It's like a secular communion rite.'' Bruce, 34, is talking this week with cereal company executives as well as ordinary people who hoard cereal boxes, if there is such a thing. Rare boxes can fetch up to $1,000, said Bruce, who began his collection in 1988 and recently published a collector's magazine called Flake. Battle Creek is the home of Kellogg Co., the world's largest cereal maker, as well as Post and Ralston-Purina plants. ``The people here have cereal in their bloodstream,'' said Bruce. Old cereal boxes are all the more valuable because of the scarcity of people who allow them to hang around. ``The militant mom was the death to many collections,'' he said mournfully. ``But maybe I'll find that that odd citizen who has a Corn Flakes box with Vanessa Williams.'' Miss Williams, Miss America 1984, lost the crown when it was disclosed she had posed nude for Playboy. Bruce said he generally hunts for vintage boxes in good condition from the 1930s through 1970s. But he's even squirreling away some of today's boxes. ``The 1990 Batman cereal box from Ralston is an instant classic,'' he said. ``Just you wait.''
