[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he first time I ate a boiled green peanut I was eight years old, in Mamers, North Carolina. My first reaction was joy, followed by anger. How could I have gone my entire life without knowing about boiled peanuts? I was practically middle-aged.
By the time I was in my twenties, I’d developed a full-blown addiction. I looked for excuses to ride past a small roadside peanut stand. I’d sit on the back of my tailgate and eat cajun peanuts until I ruptured something or passed out.Whichever came first.
Of course, boiled peanuts go with college football, beer, and college football – and beer. I experienced my first Alabama-Auburn fight over a bowl of hot boiled peanuts. It was at a small place of business in Holmes County, Florida. It went like this:
The Iron Bowl played on an enormous bar room television. Auburn scored. One Alabama fan shouted, “!@#$% Auburn!” The man was about as loaded as a potato gun at the time.
Just then, another man shot up on the other side of the bar, wearing navy and orange. “What’d you say?” He said, slurring every word of it.
A full-on fight broke out. Boiled peanuts went flying everywhere. One vision viscerally singed into my memory happened when the Alabama fan crawled atop the bar. He dropped his jeans and mooned the entire establishment. He shouted, “Roooooww tadd!” Then shook his hindquarters from side to side. Immediately, his Auburn adversary grabbed a handful of peanuts and wriggled up onto the bar beside him.
Auburn won. Seven to seventeen.