A poke in the eye

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On our drive to the Titan II Missile Museum in Arizona, which served as a grim reminder of humanity’s brush with total annihilation, I was reminded of Mr. Peanut.

Mr. Peanut came to mind because we were driving through a vast pecan farm at the time. This was near Sahuarita, on Interstate 19, where thousands of evenly spaced rows of trees flank both sides of the road and stretch for miles around. The trees were leafless, spectral in the early light; the pecan warehouse and distribution centre closed, its parking lot deserted.

I looked it up later and learned that pecan season arrives in the fall. That’s when the trees are heavy with nuts and the distribution centre bustling with activity. I also learned that pecans are the state nuts of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Texas and New Mexico but, alas, not of Arizona.

But to my main topic, triggered by thoughts of nuts. If you’ll remember, Mr. Peanut always wore a top hat and monocle, and carried a cane. He was an oddly formal chap, yet always with an eager, nervous smile.

Why so nervous? Because, strictly speaking, he was not a nut at all. He was a “ground nut;” a legume, to use the technical term, dug up from the dirt. None of this escaped the Almonds, Cashews and Filberts of this world — every single one of them a Tree Nut. In their eyes, Mr. Peanut was a jumped-up wannabe; a desperate striver in a suit.

It’s fine for Fred Astaire and William Powell, in those movies from the 1930s, to be seen dashing about in tuxedoes and tailcoats, being elegant with each other. But in our age, formal wear is strictly for weddings and fundraisers for cancer.

Even at school, the tree nuts were merciless to Mr. Peanut, knocking his top hat off during games of street hockey, scrawling Mr. Peenut above the urinals, Monsieur Le Gume on his locker.

Adulthood was no different. At a Superbowl party, say, the Brazils are in their sweats, the Pistachios in jeans and polos. The pregame show is on, a wrecked Billy Idol on screen. The Tree Nuts are handing around platters of buffalo wings, bowls of guacamole and Doritos. There’s a knock on the door. And here’s Mr. Peanut in his oddly formal getup, grinning frantically, sweating, squinting through his fogged-up monocle.

“Took forever, old chaps,” he cries out. “I say, any chance you gave me the wrong address, what?”

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After our return from Arizona, I was thinking of the Titan II Museum and, of course, Mr. Peanut, when Dolores came to mind.

Dolores is my beloved hamster, who lives with her soulmate, Ramón, in an upscale condominium inside a repurposed birdcage. I fashioned her condominium ages ago from an empty box of Ritz Crackers, because Dolores adores luxury and, frankly, because nothing is too good for her.

Last week, during scheduled maintenance, I decided to replace Dolores’s sleeping quarters in the Ritz Crackers box. I took out her tiny palette of straw and, before doing anything else, tied a blindfold around Dolores’s head to heighten her surprise. For earlier in the day, as a special treat, I had run my McGill thesis, on Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano, through my office paper shredder. Dolores couldn’t stop kissing me!

And so there they are now, Dolores and Ramón, forever lounging on their couch of slivered words.

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The near total obliteration of life on earth, and Mr. Peanut, also came to mind during a recent salmon fishing trip in British Columbia. Our mighty salmon rivers once positively churned with Chinook, Sockeye and Coho, returning to their spawning grounds to lay their eggs and, having fulfilled their biological destiny, to quietly expire.

But alas, through overfishing and pollution, salmon numbers have dwindled to near extinction. Nevertheless, through careful management, salmon stocks in some rivers are on the rebound and the average sportsman — or sportswoman — can still experience the thrill of hooking “a big one.”

On this trip, I failed to hook a Coho, which I’d been told are numerous in these waters, but did manage to land a twelve-pound Costco Salmon — a “whopper” so striking that I hired a local taxidermist to have her stuffed and mounted.

She hangs above the fireplace now, on her handsome blue Styrofoam tray, an uncomprehending glass eye seeming to follow me across the room, as I carry a bowl of shelled peanuts and a handful of shredded thesis to Dolores and her darling Ramón.