I didn’t know boiled peanuts were a secret

Published 10:04 am Wednesday, July 19, 2017

   When one grows up in a small world as I did, he may take a lot of things for granted…as I did.

     Early on I thought everyone chopped firewood, ate fried squirrel, had a Red Ryder BB gun, an Aunt Polly and knew the great pleasures of eating boiled peanuts.

     One day my world got bigger. I grew up, moved away from home and learned a lot of new stuff.

    Now about boiled peanuts. It just never occurred to me at an early age that a great portion of our country had never tasted boiled peanuts. When I leaned that I was among the few who had, it made me feel special.

     I guess my first encounter with those unfortunate ones was when my wife and I were living in the mountains of  East Tennessee. Some friends were over at our apartment one night watching football. We had put out snacks, which included boiled peanuts, chips, dip and popcorn.

     Along about half time, a friend from Arkansas asked me what were those things I was eating. I was caught way off guard. It also never occurred to me that one day I would have to explain boiled peanuts to someone, ….  souse meat maybe, but  not boiled peanuts.

     I encouraged him to try them. He did. And I could tell they didn’t really please his palate.

    “I guess you have to develop a taste for them,” he said, opting for the chips and popcorn.

     Like I said, my world got bigger. I learned that some people ate pickled herring, snails and anchovies. And as my world meshed with other worlds, there was a sharing of experiences as well. Some people call that growth.

     While attending Georgia State University in Atlanta, I worked for a scientific apparatus supply firm. I struck up a friendship with a fellow from New Jersey…as the late Lewis Grizzard would say, “A New Jersey American.” Mike was a student at Georgia Tech. And one day when we were on break, he saw me putting salted peanuts into my Orange Crush drink.

     “Is that a Southern thing?” he asked.

      Again, what I was doing was an extension of my childhood, and I had assumed that  most everyone knew about putting peanuts in a soft drink. I was wrong.

      I said, “I don’t know if it’s a Southern thing, but it’s a good thing.”

      Our friendship never involved a discussion of boiled peanuts, but I believe Mike would have liked them. He caught right on to putting peanuts in his soft drink.

     I took him to Pitty Pat’s Porch, then a famous restaurant in Atlanta, and introduced him to blackeyed peas and hamhocks. I told him about running trot lines, setting gill nets, and sitting by a fire chewing sugar cane while we listened to the fox hounds run through the night. He would listen with an intensity that reminded me of when I first read Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.

     Mike later transferred to a school back up North, and I never heard from him again. During our association, never did we identify ourselves as Democrats or Republicans.

     This past week, my wife and I have been boiling peanuts and putting them in the freezer and sharing some with our friends. It brought back a lot of fond memories, and I wonder where Mike is today. I still don’t care if he’s a Republican or a Democrat.  I just remember the important stuff … friendship.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)