Peanut Butter—Phooey!

I remember a poem from my youth, a kids poem. At least, it was in one of my kids poems books. It was short and sweet, but subtly sadistic. After about 4 minutes and 37 seconds of preliminary Googling, I have come to the conclusion that it was actually a "folk song," written who-knows-when, by who-knows-whom. But I need someone to yell at, and to interrogate, and Jack Pruletsky is the only children's poet I actually know of. So for my purposes, the poem is Peanut Butter, by Jack Pruletsky.

What kind of sick sadist are you, Jack?! And what kind of child's poem is that?!

That is my firs—err, I mean, those are my first questions.

But I'm not done with you yet, Jack. I have more questions about this poem, Jack. Deeper questions. Like this one: What was this peanut doing sitting on a railroad track? And what's such a sweet, innocent, lovable peanut like him doing on a railroad track in the middle of nowhere? (Yes, in my mind, I saw the track as being a rather empty place, maybe on the outskirts of town; in any case, we all know that the tracks are never in the safe areas of town!) And why was his heart "all a-flutter"? Huh?? Why was he running, anyways? I mean, my first thought was always that he had just run a race... but then why would he be on the tracks?! So maybe he wasn't running in a race... maybe he was running away from someone!

A-ha! I knew it! He wasn't so innocent after all!

Well, at least that settles the question of what he was doing around train tracks.

But it doesn't answer my next question: Who was he running from? In my mind, I seem to think that there are lots of train tracks in Clint Eastwood movies. Maybe he was running from Clint Eastwood?

Ohhhhhh, man! That is not good news for him! Running from Clint Eastwood is never a good position to be in!

I just have a couple more questions, Jack.

First, why would you paint this picture of this innocent, lovable peanut, taking a casual breather on the nearest railroad track, and get us all attached to him, and then, all of a sudden... BOOM!!! He's dead. Dead! "Toot toot! Peanut butter!" eh, Jack? Why would you do something so cruel, cold, and morbid in a children's poem?? I was probably traumatized for life by that heart-wrenching poem in ways that we won't even know until my therapy sessions thirty years from now!

Oh, but wait, I almost forgot... he wasn't so innocent and lovable, was he? To the casual observer, perhaps indeed, and that seems to be the general first impression. But obviously I have debunked that myth! So why would you try and get us all attached, even in just two lines, to this peanut, when really he's evil to the core!!? Why??

Although, I guess in the end, it's not so bad that he got hit by a train, killed, and turned into peanut butter. I mean, yeah, it was sad and all. But we all know there was no was he was getting away from Clint Eastwood and his .357 Magnum six-shooter, anyways.

He was peanut butter before he even started running. Him and everyone else that has ever tried to run from Clint Eastwood.

Peanut Butter
~written by (in my mind, at least) Jack Pruletsky~

A peanut sat on a railroad track
His heart was all a-flutter
Around the bend came the Number 10
Toot toot! Peanut butter!