BOILED PEANUTS

One of Grandpa's stories when he was working in the shipyards during World War II

You have some terrible disappointments in life, and I had the biggest disappointment soon after I got to Brunswick, Georgia.

I was hired readily to go to welding school. That was just real quick, because they were needing people to work so bad. And I got a place to stay. Bud I’d never been away from home, and I didn’t know anything about going to a café or a restaurant or anything else, you know, to eat.

I came out of the yard after the first day, and I was hungry as could be. I’d eaten during the day in the yard, because they had little old canteens you walked up to. And the only reason I knew to go to the canteens was because every four hours they had a break. I just watched where everybody else went.

But it was supper time, and I was hungry. I walked out and crossed the railroad tracks to get to the entrance to the shipyard, and there was a man standing right in those tracks when the shift changed selling peanuts.

We raised peanuts at home. Raised about everything we ate. But peanuts, you know, was one of the delicacies. Mamma would roast them in the oven, right in the hull, and they were extremely good.

I bought me a bag of those peanuts. I was all set for the good taste of those dry roasted peanuts. I busted one open and put it in my mouth.

“My God!” I said. “What in the world is wrong with these peanuts?” It was the worst tasting something I had ever put in my mouth. It was juicy, and it tasted like brine.

Everybody was so busy buying peanuts I couldn’t get back up there to him. I was hungry as I could be. Well, when I finally got where I could get to him, I told him, “Mister, there’s something terribly wrong with these peanuts. I can’t eat them. They taste terrible! Give me another bag.”

“Son, there ain’t nothing wrong with them peanuts.”

I said, “Yes there is. You eat one of them.”

He busted one in his mouth and says, “There ain’t nothing wrong with that peanut.”

I says, “They’re terrible! They’re salty as brine! I can’t eat them.”

He said, “They’re boiled salted peanuts. That’s the way they’re supposed to be.”

And that was one of the biggest dern disappointments I ever had in my life.