Category Archives: peanut butter

comfort memories, peanut butter

Memories and Oddities

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Tonight as I was eating supper, I was reminded of the Sunday suppers when I stayed at my grandparents farm. Why? Peanut butter. (I had some peanut butter on celery to go with my salad supper.)

I learned early in life that if you were at Grandpa P’s on Sunday evening and there wasn’t a big group on hand, supper was going to be a bowl of cornflakes or other cereal with milk, buttered toast, and – if you were grandpa – a spoon of peanut butter. One of my enduring memories of my Grandpa P at ease is him sitting at the kitchen table, legs crossed, leaning back with a smile in his eyes and a spoon hanging out of his mouth as he slowly enjoyed his peanut butter on a Sunday evening.

Of course, all us grand-kids wanted to do what grandpa was doing and have a spoon of peanut butter as well. Grandma had a stricter (and saner) view and prohibited us from imbibing until we attained a more advanced age. When I finally reached an age that grandma deemed responsible enough to partake of the straight peanut butter, I was allowed to try my spoon of peanut butter just like grandpa. What a disappointment!

The actual experience left a lot to be desired versus the wonderful thing it had become in my mind from watching grandpa. If you have ever taken a spoon of peanut butter, you have discovered how sticky and gummy it really is – especially if you are young enough to be a bit impatient. Especially if you don’t have a cup of hot coffee to help melt it on down the throat.

If I had been a brighter pupil, I would have learned my lesson then. But I didn’t, and so a number of years later I can remember being given a bit chew by grandpa while we were out working in the shop. Although he took great pains to warn me not to swallow, I’m sure you know what happened. Yep, I have never had a worse self-induced bellyache in my life. That was the experience that finally taught me that it probably was not wise to want to emulate all of grandpa’s habits, no matter how much I idolized him.

P.S. It amazes me that I can see the Sunday evening table setting with absolute clarity even now many years later. The white bowls and matching juice glasses that I think grandma got as part of a box top or Tang promo stand out and evoke all kinds of pleasant memories any time I think of them. They star in so many of my memories of Sunday and breakfasts and grandpa and grandma’s farm …

memory, peanut butter

The Mind Is The First ….

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They always say that the mind is the first thing to go. Maybe that is true.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the grocery store with peanut butter on my list. I have very clear memories of standing before the peanut butter display and reaching for the jar of Skippy that was my choice. However, at that point a family friend walked up and started talking. After 30 minutes or so, I continued on with my grocery shopping. I came home and put up my groceries, then took Mom’s groceries over to her house. Never thought a thing about it.

Last week I decided to pull out the peanut butter. I looked on the shelf in the pantry where the nearly defunct jar resides and there was no shiny new companion beside it. Since I could so clearly remember the peanut butter from the previous shopping trip, I decided I must have put it somewhere else. I searched the shelves, but no Skippy appeared. So then I decided that I must have left it at Mom’s house when I dropped off her groceries.

I called Mom and asked “Did I perchance leave a jar of Skippy when I delivered your groceries?”

Her answer was short and sweet: “No.”

After further pondering, I came to the possibility that L had taken the Skippy up to the mountains with her. There is no logical reason for that to have happened, especially since I am a smooth peanut butter fan and L is a chunky kind of gal. (Can you tell I was really grasping at the straws of sanity here?)

I called L and asked “Did you happen to abscond with a jar of peanut butter last weekend?”

Her answer echoed Mom’s. Perhaps even terser a bit more emphatic.

At this point I was slowly coming to the fuzzy conclusion that I must not have purchased the missing Skippy. It bothered me that I had so vivid a memory of picking up the jar of peanut butter but that I evidently had not purchased it. So I pondered some more on whether I had indeed purchased the peanut butter. The pondering left me confused and as I had already disposed of the store reciept, there was no way of telling if I had indeed bought the Skippy. I finally convinced myself that the distraction of visiting with the friend must have led me to not put the peanut butter in my grocery cart. But then why had I crossed it off my list?

So when I went to the store last weekend, I bought a jar of peanut butter. And when I dropped Mom’s groceries off, she called me a bit later to tell me I had left my Trident gum with her groceries. (Of course both she and L were up for razzing me at every opportunity about losing my mind.) But that I already knew about the gum since I remembered the bag it was in that I left with Mom’s groceries as soon as I got home. This time when I unpacked my groceries, I put the peanut butter right beside the nearly empty jar in the pantry. Just to be sure.

Fast forward to last night. I opened the cabinet where I keep the cereal and some paper goods. And as I looked up to the top shelf well above my head where I never before have ever put peanut butter, I saw what looked to be a jar of peanut butter.

Low and behold, it was my missing jar of Skippy. (Pay no attention to the smiling pig paper plate. I know how it got there.) So now I have a bit of extra peanut butter and some faith that I am not totally losing my mind. I did indeed buy the peanut butter the first time, I just didn’t remember where I put it. Does that count as half a mind lost?

I’ll leave it up to you – is my mind gone yet?