Courage and boiled peanuts

I remember eating my first raw oyster and gagging the entire time, while thinking that the first person who ever swallowed a raw oyster must have been very courageous. I think the first person who boiled peanuts must have been in that club, too.

My big sister (whose birthday is today had she lived) was a transplanted Yankee.  She grew up in the South but quickly fled to Miami, then to Chicago, then to New York and finally to Sedona, where she thought she had found Nirvana.  On her visits home, she always begged for boiled peanuts.  We would visit Mr. Trawick's stand or sometimes drive out in the country to Headland or down to Campbellton to try to locate the best boiled peanuts.  We would gorge ourselves and share memories of our father boiling large vats.  His peanuts were always the best with just the right amount of salt.  We'd fight over the young peanuts that we could eat whole --juice and all.  The smell would waft throughout the house and we couldn't wait for them to cool.  We would sit on the porch and crack the peanuts with our teeth and toss the shells into the shrubs below.   Our dad didn't fuss-- he knew the shells make wonderful compost.

To honor Beverly on her birthday, I boiled peanuts.  I'm waiting for them to cool -- then I'm going to sit in the rocker on the porch to think about my sister and the good times we shared.