In Japan they love boiled peanuts, not roasted. A friend had let me taste one and I thought they were pretty good. So one afternoon we made an adventure out of riding a Japanese bus to the the little town nearby and buying some. On the way back, we stopped off and bought a big bag of Cherry Mountain candy bars. I haven't seen a Cherry Mountain in years but they used to be my favorites...a creme filling with chunks of cherry inside a thick layer of chocolate and nuts....I loved 'em.

So the adventure was a success. We each had a small bag of boiled peanuts, a bunch of Cherry Mountains...all of which got devoured on the bus ride home. It was great to be loose in Japan at the age of 12, running all over, buses, trains, walking for miles along the beach...it was 1959.

Oh...and by the way...boiled peanuts have a powerful effect on your internals...especially if you have never eaten a boiled peanut before. About midnight that night, my "internals" did their best to become "externals". I woke up in a cold sweat, needing to get to the bathroom. In our Navy quarters, I had the "maid's room" downstairs...a very small bedroom off the living room next to a half bath, and I couldn't even make it the ten feet to that little bathroom. The peanuts generated massive amounts of gas that forced its way out violently. I had never heard of projectile vomiting or explosive diarrhea before that night. My dad, the Chief, heard me and came storming down the stairs. For the next half hour or so, he tried to figure out which end to point at the toilet while I, limp as a dishrag, submitted to whichever position he put me in, only vaguely aware of the mess I was making and the fact that the Chief was only guessing right about half the time.

Once the fountain slowed down, he piled me in the car and took me to the Navy Hospital at Yokosuka. After the medics looked me over and administered the plugging agents for both offending apertures, they started asking me what I eaten, besides the Cherry Mountains that were in evidence. I didn't even consider the peanuts in the first round of questioning, but the candybars didn't rise to the level of distress I was experiencing. One of corpsmen asked about Japanese food and when I mentioned the peanuts, there was a chorus of snickering and knowing nods and glances. It seems that the peanuts were very popular and had a similar effect on all the gaijin (non-Japanese) who couldn't keep from over-doing it (apparently eating a whole bag was far above the level of "over-doing"). I was sent home with huge bottles of pink stuff, and pills the size of .38 bullets, and instructions on what I could not eat for a week.

Most of the events of that night are a blur to me. My folks filled in a lot of detail for me (as time moved on the events became more colorful). I do remember the weakness and frustration of not being able to crawl that ten feet to the Head...I remember the Chief tossing me around trying to aim me like a fire hose...I remember my vision closing in and sounds fading...I remember seeing my mom holding my sister and trying to comfort her...I don't remember the ride from Admiralty Heights to Yokosuka but I do remember getting out of the car at the emergency entrance and pausing to launch again before going inside. My memories of the treatment room and the medics are pretty vivid. It was a long time ago...fifty-two years about. But you know what? I have never eaten a Cherry Mountain since that day...and just thinking about it has me feeling queasy right now.