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Lawd! Lawd!

That’s what my granny would say when things turned upside down and inside out.

So. Lawd! Lawd!

This being Pike County’s Bicentennial year, my first thoughts turned back to the 30 years of the Peanut Butter Festival and the many upside downs of the annual harvest and heritage celebration.

The most scandalous festival was in 1993 when Lady Godiva, dressed and undressed, paraded through town on a huge, metal horse sculpted by Brundidge artist Larry Godwin. Never mind that Lady Godiva’s long, blond hair covered much of her nude body suit, the women, who lined the parade route, covered their mouths and closed their eyes, “Scandalous! Shameful, Sinful!” they screamed. The men? Well, they followed Lady Godiva all the way through town, to the Methodist Church on to the Baptist and would have gone on down the road to St. John except Lady Godiva’s horse threw a shoe.

That could have been the end of Lady Godiva but it was not. Three years later, she was back to “Bear It All” on Godwin’s 8-foot metal grizzly bear. Men from miles around found reason to do business in Brundidge on that last Saturday in October. The wives stayed home a prayed.

There have many other Lawd! Lawds! uttered at the nutty festival. The day the goats escaped their “kids’ dressing” and were the subjects of a high-speed chases never to be caught and incarcerated. One festival day, the greasy pigs “slipped” away. The hens flew the coop and found nesting places and laid speckled city eggs all around town.

And Lawd! Lawd! the year the church lady administered “country community” to children thinking it was apple juice but it was homemade tomato wine. And, the year, the good doctor’s portable, home moonshine still was pilfered after the festival while the worn-out workers went home to rest.

Moonshine stills! Lawd! Lawd! and shut yo mouth! For the first time in 29 years, a moonshine still will not be on display at the Peanut Butter Festival.

The prized, show still, one of the finest – the one with the copper pot and thumper keg and those amazing coils and the burners and everything necessary to make illegal moonshine has been stolen from behind lock and key. There is no joy in peanut butter town! The still has been “stole!” Lawd! Lawd!

The high sheriff has been notified and the town police is on high alert that there’s a new moonshiner in these here parts and Lawd! Lawd! when he gets caught!