Yes, it's Mr. Peanut! (And not the rappin', hip-hoppin' one from last year's commercials - ugh!) Turns out there's a Planters Peanut Shop just around the corner from my hotel here in Columbus, Ohio (where, if you'll remember, I'm ensconced for another week). Walking back from some function or another yesterday, the smell of fresh roasted peanuts hit me before I ever saw the neon Mr. Peanut winking at me. Fresh roasted peanuts. Yu-um!When I was a kid in Chattanooga, Tennessee, we, too, had a Planters Peanut Shop a couple of blocks from our house. Summer evenings would find a knot of children and a parent or two making their way up our street and across busy Brainerd Road to get a big ol' sack full of hot roasted peanuts. That roasted-peanut-smell was the olfactory equivalent of the Pied Piper, drawing us closer and closer to the peanutty object of our affections.
The shop was usually crowded. It was summer in the South, after all. Oh, what torture to have to hang around outside the shop and wait your turn! Well worth the wait, however, as your little hand would scoop up a handful of warm little jewels from the big ol' sack o' nuts. Mmmmmm.
And you know what? The fresh roasted peanuts I bought yesterday here in Columbus had the same wonderfully indescribable taste as the ones from Chattanooga all those years ago. It was a fine thing to find an old friend again.
Oh. And by the way. Whatever the mainstream news is reporting about what's going on here, the real news of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church is the amazing stories of folks working hard for deaf ministries, peace and justice, HIV/AIDS, youth ministries, non-violence training, Appalachian ministries, the health and education of people in Sudan, India, Honduras - the list goes on. Here's hoping we get beyond the Windsor Report and focus on this very real stuff.
3 comments:
Welcome to Columbus Mary B. I have seen him there for years and never paid much any attention to Mr. Peanut. Thank for sharing the photo.
Maureen
Mary -- I thought I was the only one to remember the peanut shop on Brainerd road..I would always go in with dad to buy some peanuts before a Lookouts game at Engle stadium . So much for childhood memories . Now they are bought in a cold store off of a rack next to Pepto-Bismol. Not too many memories there.
Maureen - thanks for the wonderful Columbus hospitality. Everyone was extremely gracious, welcoming, and made our lives so much easier. Think of me when you smell those peanuts!
Jay and Virginia - knew all the South Moore crowd would remember the Mr. Peanut store. And, I do vaguely remember the one downtown.
Maybe there's one here in NYC - I need to Google it. The ideal location would be right next to a Krispy Kreme, eh?
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