A spoonful of peanut butter ...

There’s been a lot of talk lately about peanuts, most of it concerning salmonella. Being born and raised in this peanut state, I take great offense to it. It’s time to set the record straight – it’s time to fight back! This is war! Those little peanuts can’t defend themselves; it’s up to all of us.

I for one believe the peanut is taking a shelling. It’s those morons who own that plant in South Georgia that put profit above plain common sense that should be recalled, not the poor little peanuts.

Peanuts are the main ingredient to peanut butter, a food that has been the staple of my life as far back as I can remember. Why, without peanut butter, I don’t think I would’ve gotten out of Mrs. Crabtree’s third-grade class.

Every Friday she gave out “ants on a log” if you turned in your homework all week. I just loved her peanut butter on celery with raisins on top. Not only did they taste good, but if you threw them fast enough they could cover the face of a certain bully before he could catch you. Ants on a log are a great defensive weapon.

Surviving Briarwood football two-a-day practices on that rock-infested dust bowl they called a football field would have been an impossible feat if not for warm peanut butter and honey sandwiches secretly stowed away in the equipment bags.

And making it though those lean college years at Auburn would have been ... well ... wouldn’t have made it. You’d be amazed how long you can live on just a jumbo jar of peanut butter, mayonnaise, a loaf of white Sunbeam bread and a bunch of bananas. That kinda food really sticks to your ribs.

With us five kids constantly running in and out of the house, to say we kept Mom rather busy would be the understatement of the year.

Back then, our mom did the normal mom stuff: she cooked all the meals, cleaned up after us, and did lots and lots of laundry. Looking back now, I guess none of us really understood how hard a job she did. It was amazing that she had any energy left to do all the really super mom stuff that set her apart from all the other moms on Flamingo Street.

Mom was the one who placed that magic fever-breaking wash cloth on our foreheads. She gave us reassuring hugs after we lost fights with Down the Street Bully Brad – an almost weekly event. And, most importantly, it was our mom who made the best peanut-butter-banana-mayonnaise-on-white-Sunbeam-bread of any mom on Flamingo Street.

Now some of you may balk at the idea of such an odd combination for a sandwich, but I got news for you. It’s kinda like pouring peanuts into a Coke — you ain’t really Southern ‘til you tried it. Broke or not, I really don’t think I could go a day without at least a huge spoonful of peanut butter.

I just hope somewhere in President Obama’s 1,000-page stimulus bill there’s money for each of us to buy a jumbo jar of peanut butter, a big bunch of bananas, a jar of mayonnaise and a loaf of white Sunbeam bread.

It’s the only way any of us are going to survive. And buying all that peanut butter will really help to stimulate Georgia’s economy.

From the looks of the Wall Street numbers for the last year, my 401K is now down to a 201K, and I’m way past bailing out. Please, someone just throw me a jar of peanut butter and a spoon. I learned a long time ago that there’s not much a big spoonful of peanut butter won’t cure.