Peanut Parade

Okay, boys and girls, it is time for a test. Say "Pelion Peanut Parade" very fast 10 times. Ready? Go! I'll wait until you get done...What? Can't do it? Well, I can't either, but that's where I went today. As I discussed last week at Little Mountain, there is nothing like a small town parade. There were bands and floats. There were animals and little cars. There were motorcycles and tractors. And, the Andre Army was there. That's what we call us. The people who show up to promote Andre Bauer. My job, as usual, was to pass out stickers, mostly to kids. We have found through on the spot research that kids love stickers. They may not be able to read yet, much less vote, but they will wear a sticker, and that's free advertising for us. I gave them to some adults too. One thing about Pelion is that they have a nudist camp nearby. I was kind of hoping for those folks to have a float in the parade, but unfortunately they didn't. However, I did see one woman on the crowd who was wearing practically nothing. She took a sticker, but I have no idea where she put it. As for the political participants, Andre's Army was the only ones there. We did see one House member and the county sheriff, but no other candidates for governor. I think some folks might have felt slighted. Several of the floats had people on them throwing candy to the kids. Some girls on one float seemed to be aiming for my head. I tried to walk faster than the float to keep from getting hit, but would get it anyway. So, then I tried walking slower to let them get ahead, but then they stopped to do something, and we met up again. I had to warn the spectators about them. We heard even the sheriff hit someone with candy. It was all in good fun though. For those of you not familiar with South Carolina, the boiled peanut is recognized as our state's official nut. That is what this celebration was all about. I didn't eat any nuts, but I saw a lot of them. But, one thing that Pelion has more of than nuts is gnats. They were all over the place. I guess the residents are used to them, but us city people had a tough time with gnats. So, it was a good time in Pelion.