Because we believe that our readers deserve the most important news and commentary that can be had, we want to take a moment to make sure you know that tomorrow, Oct. 22, is National Nut Day. It’s also National Mother-in-Law Day, but we’re pretty sure that’s only a coincidence.

Suffolk has an obvious connection to the former, as there are still plenty of folks who remember the city’s self-designation as the Peanut Capital of the World. Yes, we know peanuts are not technically nuts, but legumes (whatever legumes are), but we suspect that even the biologists and botanists in this part of the country think of the goober pea as a nut from time to time.

The air has been dense with the smell of dug peanuts in recent weeks, reminding many old-timers of the days when cotton was hard to find growing in area fields, which were planted as far as the eye could see during the summer months with beautiful “peanut bushes.” As summer transitioned to fall, farmers would get back into those fields to turn the peanuts out of the ground, where they could dry a bit before being harvested and taken to peanut dryers.

There’s just something about that smell — freshly turned earth and drying peanuts — that feels like home.

National Nut Day seems as good a time to celebrate the goober as any other, and we submit that if peanuts weren’t nuts, then whoever invented this holiday should have put it on the calendar at a time when peanuts are still hidden below ground.

Go out and celebrate. Pick up a bag of salted-in-the-shell, make a mess in front of the recliner and be sure to give your mother-in-law a couple, as well. It’s her day, too, after all.