Long Beach Island Vacation Magazine

98 home • PORT I n the summer of 1977, I was a twenty-five- year-old salesman for a major food company and taking part in a right-of-passage that many other young men and women gloriously participated in during the summer months: renting a house at the Jersey Shore with about ten other people and then imbibing our week- ends away. The town of choice that summer was Belmar, and it was during that "Summer of Sam" and the "Great Blackout of New York City" that my business career and our shore shenanigans met on a collision course, the likes of which I would never see again. The company I worked for was Standard Brands foods, creator and distributor of the world-famous Planters Peanuts, and my job was to make sure the super- markets gave our pre- mium peanuts the love they deserved by giving them a prime spot on the supermarket shelves. Occasionally, I was also involved in promo- tions to help introduce a new supermarket or celebrate the major renovation of an exist- ing one. And for these promotional events, Standard Brands did not hold back. They brought in the master marketer himself, the world-renowned Mr. Peanut! What my company would do at the time was hire an actor to wear a gigantic, all-metal (and expensive) Mr. Peanut costume, and have him greet families and children as they entered the supermarket. And the Big Peanut Man would even toss free packaged peanut samples to the admiring crowd. More often than not, kids of all ages would follow the iconic character throughout the store, as if he was some type of The Day Mr. Peanut Visited Belmar by Charlie Gobel Peanut-Pied-Piper. So one steamy Friday morning, I received a call from my boss who told me he was in a bind and needed me to attend the grand opening of a supermarket in central Jersey. He explained to me that a Mr. Peanut appearance would be the highlight of the event, and that after I made the rounds with the Peanut character, I was to retrieve the costume and bring it back to our corporate headquarters the following Monday. However, as he spoke to me, I could sense that this was not an arrangement he was entirely comfortable with, and there was probably a very good reason for that. Being a really cool boss, as well as rather young himself (though married), I always felt at ease explaining to him in great detail the insanity of our Belmar weekends as the two of us drove along together on our numerous joint sales calls. And he just loved hearing about our lavish Christmas parties in July; driving to the Dunes 'til Dawn bar near Atlantic City at 1:00 AM (and some- how making it back to Belmar early the next day); the ten-beers-for-a-dollar special during D'Jais' Happy Hour in Belmar; near-endless nights spent at the Royal Manor in Wall, Jimmy Byrne's Sea Girt Inn, the Headliner in Neptune, and The Osprey in Manasquan; and naturally, tales of the young and beautiful ladies who graced the Jersey Shore bar scene. So it was with a slight bit of trepidation that I heard my boss ask me the following question: "Charlie, after you pick up the Mr. Peanut outfit, will you be dropping it off at Continued on page 97

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