Jimmy Carter 

Peanut Gallery

The first time I poisoned my son was when he was two. His mother was out of the house meeting with some friends from work, so Evan and I were reclined on the couch. I was watching reruns of the X-Files or some other paranormal/sci-fi show. Until this evening Evan had never ingested peanut butter. He turned his head in disgust every time it was presented. I had gotten it into my head that his stance on peanut butter was untenable and I was coaxing him to eat it by dipping my finger into the jar and bringing it to his lips. By the time Colette came home the sun had set and the living room was only lit by the glow of the television. She turned on the light and immediately began to question the red rash ringing Evan’s mouth like some circus clown after a hard night of drinking. It was at this point that we concluded that he had somehow known that he was allergic to peanuts. This would not be the last time that peanuts would lead to my son’s demise.

The memory of this night was bubbling about in my head as we neared the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains, GA. This was a stop along the way to our ultimate destination, Florida. Colette had a conference about Zora Neale Hurston, and while she was in classes, Evan and I planned on hitting the beach and Disney World. This was ideal because Colette hates both the water and racist cartoons.

Before our romp in the surf and cruise with the Pirates of the Caribbean we were stopping at the many National Park Service sites along the way. The Carter historic site itself consists of a farmhouse in which you can walk from room to room hearing President Carter tell stories of his childhood and the Plains High School which has been converted into a visitor center and small museum including a recreation of his oval office. Our tour was pleasant and it ended with the traditional swearing in of Evan as a junior ranger. The real fun began when we embraced the pea-nuttiness of the town. Half a mile north of the high school is a buck-toothed peanut-shaped statue of Jimmy Carter. Imagine the weirdest peanut statue possible, then kick it up a notch. Evan was ten-years-old, a good seven or eight years removed from the peanut poisoning incident. Since then we had successfully challenged his allergy under the supervision of a doctor, so the worry of accidental exposure to a stray Snicker bar at school lunch was no longer a worry. However, Evan still detested peanuts, not just the taste, he hated the concept of peanuts. He holds onto even the most minor trauma with the tenacity that a raccoon grasps a half-eaten apple found in a park trash can. When presented with the opportunity to inflame this legume based trauma in the form of a thirteen foot smiling peanut statue, we are the type of parents that leap at the chance. At first Evan refused to leave the car, but after much cajoling and probably some bribery he acquiesced. In every picture we have of him his hands are clinched as if he was ready to fight a peanut if the opportunity presented itself. It was also the last time he would not have a bb sized dent in his shin.

The clouds had been moving in all afternoon and as we basked in the glory of the personified peanut, large lukewarm droplets were let loose from the thickening clouds. It was a peaceful rain that barely required the use of wipers, but during our less than a mile drive back to the center of town the downpour turned torrential. We pulled into a parking spot directly in front of Plain Peanuts, a purveyor of all things peanut. They are the Bubba Blue of peanuts. They have your fried peanuts, Cajun fried peanuts, lemon pepper peanuts, garlic peanuts, salted peanuts, deep fried peanuts, raw shelled peanuts, peanut brittle, chocolate peanut brittle, chocolate peanut clusters, peanut butter, peanut butter ice cream, boiled peanuts, and of course all sorts of peanut and Carter souvenirs. The only saving grace for Evan was the salt water taffy. If peanuts are Evan’s Kryptonite, then taffy is the yellow sun source of his super powers. He loved going into almost any souvenir shop in America and selecting one of every flavor of taffy.

The rain pounding on the broad expanse of the roof of our Ford Flex made it nearly impossible to hear each other speak. Colette and I were going to wait it out before we exited the car, but Evan decided that he was going to go for it. The pull of taffy was too strong. I unlocked the back door, and he bolted out. He ran for the store, but as he reached the sidewalk he suddenly vanished. What is obvious while looking at pictures of the store, but not during a blinding downpour is that between some of the posts that support the roof over the sidewalk there are benches. Evan ran at full reckless ten-year-old speed into what was apparently a very solid wooden bench and went down hard.

At this point you should know that Evan never lives in the moment. He lives in the future. He lives in the five minutes, five hours, five days, five months, and maybe even five years from now, so when he started howling in pain like he had lost his fingers in a deli slicer it was the sum of his pain and all of the lost opportunities of our vacation. He was crying because he would not be able to swim at the beach. He was crying because he would not get to see The Magic Kingdom. He was crying because he had let us down and ruined our vacation. All of the future Evans had converged on a bench in the pouring rain of Plains Georgia convinced that he would have to be airlifted to a hospital and ultimately sent home ruining the trip for everyone. We could not convince him otherwise.

We likewise could not convince the store proprietors that Evan had not shattered his tibia into a million shards that were currently working their way through his blood stream and shredding his heart. They had never experienced the collective scream of the multiverse of Evans. We had once before witnessed this during a skinned knee incident at a Washington Nationals baseball game, so we were relatively sure he would be fine, but to the people gathered in the doorway of the peanut store we appeared to be heartless monsters bent on torturing an innocent little boy.

For the next half hour, we alternated between comforting Evan and convincing the good people of Plains that there was no need to call in the Secret Service to transport him to Atlanta. I failed to mention that Jimmy Carter still lives in Plains, delivers sermons at the local church, and teaches Sunday school when he is not busy with Habitat for Humanity or eliminating Guinea worm from the face of the planet. It is profoundly bizarre to go to a historic site where the subject still resides. History is usually concerned with the dead, and when it is not the subject has usually moved from his or her childhood home to grander accommodations, but in the case of President Carter, he lived just down the street protected from potential assassins and giant horse flies by the Secret Service. The small congregation (how big could it be in Plains?) calmly explained that there was not a hospital anywhere near, but the Secret Service was available in the case of emergencies.

We finally convinced the assembled Samaritans that a cold cloth and some ice cream would probably do the trick, and it eventually did. Though the actual limp lasted for a couple of days and the psychosomatic would reappear sporadically throughout the rest of the vacation, we did successfully make it to Florida. Evan and I spent a day at the Magic Kingdom solving pirate puzzles and shooting lasers like Buzz Lightyear. We went to the Canaveral National Seashore and spent a day at the beach and saw a manatee nose in the distance. After Colette’s conference we made our way to Key West in time to see the sunset and snorkel the next day. We ate Cuban sandwiches in Little Havana, and eventually made our way home.

Evan still has the scar on his leg and he still hates peanut butter. He now blames us for the mishap because we should have never taken him to a store dedicated to peanuts. I hope that the scar, the Jimmy Carter election button we bought for him at the store, and the trauma from that day help solidify the memories of what ended up being an amazing trip.