The spelling — in hand-painted, ripe-tomato-red letters — is shakier than the ramshackle plywood fruit stand they advertise: “P-E-C-H-E-S.”
To motorists whizzing past Peches Fruit Stand on U.S. Highway 441 north of Eatonton, the surprising misspelling of “peaches” on a couple of the stand’s prominent signs no doubt approaches blasphemy of Georgia’s noblest fruit.
The roadside curiosity has been turning heads for going on three decades.
“Peches” has become a catchword, a local linguistic novelty, a yokelish, chuckle-worthy reflection on country life and country talk.
Were the signs perched along a bustling interstate, they might by now have intrigued and puzzled millions, doing for seeming illiteracy what “See Rock City” did for simplicity.
Some passersby almost certainly, upon reading “Peches,” feel a bit superior.
“The spelling police,” fruit stand co-proprietor Cindy Jenkins has dubbed folks who can’t help but scoff at such a publicly visible mistake.
For those who poke fun at “Peches,” the joke is really on them.
Jenkins and her husband, Anthony, run the seasonal stand. They are well aware of the pitifully spelled peach. So much so that every year they re-paint the signs minus an “A” in remembrance of the signs’ creator.
One day roughly 30 years ago, Danny Powers, who was Anthony Jenkins’ half brother, grabbed a paintbrush and went to work lettering a homemade “PEACHES” sign for the stand.
But he left out the “A” and “Peches” was born.
“He was kind of drinking that day,” Cindy Jenkins, 56, explained recently. “He was drinking beer and moonshine out here when he painted the sign.”
Anthony Jenkins, 55, said, “We didn’t even pay it no attention really. … Then everybody come up saying, ‘What’s Peches?’”
Powers, who died in 2013 at age 49, had worked in construction and later, after the sign-painting snafu, lost vision in his left eye when someone struck him with a mop handle in a jail fight.
“He’s made ‘Peches’ famous, though,” Cindy Jenkins said.
The stand, which sits a dozen miles south of Interstate 20 in northern Putnam County, boasts less-known but far more cultured brush with notoriety.
Before “Peches” was on the marquee, a glimpse of the stand was featured in the opening scenes of the 1992 movie My Cousin Vinny. Much of that film, starring Joe Pechy, err, Pesci, was shot in neighboring Jasper County in early 1991.
Filmmakers paid Anthony Jenkins’ grandfather $500 to open the stand in the dead of winter to add Southern flavor to a montage of actor Ralph Macchio driving into a fictional Alabama county.
The social media era has generated more buzz. Some passersby can’t resist stopping to snap cellphone photos of the “Peches” sign to post on their feeds.
Lately, the widening of U.S. 441 has kept the stand shuttered.
“This is our busiest time,” Cindy Jenkins said. “It’s hard for people to get in and out.”
On a recent morning, chickens clucked out back while a penned hog named Lucy stirred nearby.
Cindy Jenkins unlatched the front of the stand to show a visitor how it looks with its red-lettered signs at full throat: “PLUMS … JELLIES … APPLE … HOTSAUCE.”
The spelling of one more delicacy stood out: “TOMATOE.”
“That,” Cindy Jenkins said, “is the way it’s always been.”
