Peanut Boy

Every Summer from the time I was about six years old until I was about 15, my brother Sandy (who is five years older) and I got up early and pulled up and picked off by hand a bushel of peanuts every day. We washed them, picked out the pops and stems we missed while handpicking them, and boiled them in the big iron washpot. Until Sandy got old enough to drive, one of our parents took us to town (Butler) where we sold our peanuts. We used a jelly glass and brown paper bags, and we got about 105-110 bags from a bushel. We sold them for a dime a bag, so that means we grossed about $11.00 per bushel. We did that five days a week, and on Saturdays, we sold at least two bushels. That means we grossed around $75.00-$80.00 per week. That doesn't sound like much now, but I'm talking about from about 1955 until about 1963. That was pretty good money for a couple of country kids back then. We bought salt by the 50 lb bag and bags by the bale.

We bought all our school clothes every year with peanut money. Sandy and I would send an order to Sears Roebuck for blue jeans, tee shirts, a couple of flannel shirts, PF Flyers, and a new pair of brogans each. Each year, we would get something like a new baseball glove, or a football and helmets, etc. Sandy bought his first shotgun, a Remington Sportsman 48, at the Western Auto in Butler when he was 13. One of my most prized possessions is a Marlin Golden 39A .22 rifle I bought in 1961 just before I turned 13. 

After Sandy got old enough that he did not really want to walk around with a bucket selling peanuts, he handled the transportation and a lot of the pulling and picking. He would take me to town to sell the peanuts, and he would return home to get a head start on the next day's work. That way, we could have two bushels to sell on Saturday. He never took a job in town until the Summer after he graduated, because he could still make more money in the peanut business. The most I ever sold in one day was almost four bushels, 420 bags of peanuts at a dime a bag. Sandy was hauling them to me as fast as he could get them done, boiling a bushel at the time.

From the time I was about six, I knew every businessman and elected official in Butler. I would go in every store, bank, lawyers office, Courthouse office, and grocery store in town. The thing is, everyone craved the peanuts so much, they would get mad if I was late coming by, or if I happened to run out of peanuts before making it by their place. To this day, I still remember who my best customers were. I remember how about 99% of the people treated a chubby little kid with the basket of peanuts very good. There were only two people I remember who were just hateful. 

I don't ever remember anyone trying to cheat me. There were those who tried to talk me into giving them peanuts, but most of them were kids my own age. Looking back, probably the reason no one tried to take advantage was that besides my Daddy, who was a big, powerful, well respected man, there were probably a half-dozen other men in town who would have looked very unfavorably on anyone who tried to cheat the "peanut boy." (I recently ran into a girl who is my age, and who I haven't seen in 30 years or so. When she saw me, she said, "There's my peanut boy!")

I look back on those days, in another lifetime, and I thank God and my parents that I had that experience. I guess it is one reason I have never met a stranger. It instilled in me the knowledge that if I worked, I would have some things I wanted, and would almost always have a "jingle in my pocket." It taught me that a quality product at a fair price will always be in demand. It helped teach me that a smile and a pleasant word will do as much to make people like and respect you as being rich. Every kid should have the opportunity to go in business for himself when he is six years old.

By the way, I have never bought any boiled peanuts that were of the quality of what we sold. There were absolutely no stems, pops, or trash in our peanuts. I bought some green boiled peanuts last Saturday. I paid six dollars for about the amount of peanuts I would have sold for forty to fifty cents. When I finished them that night, fully thirty to forty percent were inedible pops.


My Marlin Golden 39A .22 rifle. I think my uncle bought it at Davis Sporting Goods in Phenix City in 1959 or 1960 and I bought it from him in 1960 or 1961.