STRANGER THAN FICTION: FROM COTTON TO PEANUTS, AMERICANS LOVE THOSE CROPS

I knew I was home when I discovered the Chumuckla Proud-To-Be-A-Redneck Christmas Parade.

People tend to celebrate things that make them different, and Southeast Missouri is known for its crop-related festivals.

In March, they celebrate the soybean harvest in East Prairie, they thrill to the thought of their yearly sweet corn pickin'. In Sikeston, Little Mr. and Miss Cotton Top are reminded that their little blonde heads wouldn't be crowned if it weren't for one of the area's largest cash crops.

We Nieland kids were raised going to various festivals and parades, knocking over 90-year-olds in wheelchairs to get at candy thrown from floats. We participated in duck abuse by purchasing four plastic rings for a dollar and throwing them into the duck pond. The idea was actually ring a duck, but the wily fowl usually outsmarted us.

We stuck our teeth together eating candied apples -- the red kind, not the caramel -- and sat on bored ponies as they walked around in circles planning The Great Shetland Pony Rebellion.

So you can imagine how at home I felt when I discovered all of Santa Rosa County's great festivals here in Florida. The trouble is, my home-state festivals sound downright boring compared to the ones here.

Last week, folks celebrated Scratch Ankle in Milton, a festival that comes complete with a logo that features a free-standing hand and ankle.

The name comes from Milton's early days, when pirates on the nearby Blackwater River had to climb through briars to come ashore and do business. Remembering the resulting injuries, they called the town Scratch Ankle.

Pirates who anchored further upstream had to climb up talk stone bluffs, so THEY called the town Hard Scrabble. The Powers That Be who created the festival decided that Scratch Ankle sounded better than Hard Scrabble, although I'm really torn on the subject, myself.

Anyway, the celebration features all the usual food booths, plus a car-smashing competition. Participants, primarily strong males, stand on the roof of a car and smash a target on the hood with a sledge hammer. Apparently the one who does the most damage wins.

Of course, the joy of discovering Scratch Ankle paled when I found out about the Chumuckla Proud-To-Be-A-Redneck Christmas Parade, which I missed last year.

Chumuckla is a small community with a general store, an elementary school, a baseball field, an old cotton gin and a Tom Thumb, one of the county's most common convenience stores. Four years ago, Native Chumucklan Chuck Cook started a satirical newsletter called the "Chumuckla Chew," in which he chronicled the goings-on at a non-existent Christmas Parade.

Everybody had a good laugh until November of the following year, when the more gullible Chumucklans started calling Cook to ask how they could enter the parade.

It started out small -- just a few decorated pickups driving less than a mile between the old cotton gin and the baseball field. Today, it features many more decorated pickups, including one with a makeshift outhouse in the bed. Santa Claus walks around passing out Slim Jims instead of candy canes, and women flock to compete in the skillet toss.

"Whoever chucks the skillet the farthest wins," Cook succinctly explained.

Just the idea of this parade warms my heart. In a world where many people consider the word "redneck" to be an insult. Chumucklans celebrate their heritage by tossing skillets and eating Slim Jims. Color me there come next December.

But there's another festival to tide me over -- the Jay Peanut Festival.

Jay is in the northern part of the county, dangerously close to the Alabama state line. Peanuts are one of the area's biggest cash crops. The Gabbert Family celebrates the fact by conducting the annual festival at their farm.

They invite vendors to come and sell all kinds of peanuts. There are roasted, boiled, deep-fat friend and European style. The first two I'd heard of, but deep-fat friend peanuts? That's like buying hardened arteries in a sack! And European style? Brenda Gabbett told me those are candied in various flavors.

People come to the festival from miles around particularly to see the anvil shoot.

"They shoot an anvil out of a thing like a cannon," Gabbert said. "It's very precise."

You'd think Scratch Ankle, the Chumuckla Proud-To-Be-A-Redneck Christmas Parade and the Jay Peanut Festival would be enough excitement for one county, but it isn't. There's also the annual Gulf Breeze UFO Conference.

I'd tell you about it, but I don't want to get too worked up.

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff wrter for the Southeast Missourian now living in Pensacola, Fla.