To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. Like his father before him, Larry is also good with people . “I just love people, especially the kids. They really touch my heart.” He says that dealing with people all these years has taught him to appreciate life and respect people, and to care about them. He has story after story about the people he sees regularly in his business. While I was talking to him, a hockey fan bought a bag of peanuts and told Larry that he used to come regularly from Canada for the games. “Back then, Pat LaFontaine and [Alexander] Mogilny were playing–the games were electric– it was just tremendous, and I’d always get two bags of peanuts before I went in.” and it connected to another bag and then another bag, and the next thing I knew, the whole warmer was in f lames and smoke was going into The Aud. People were like, ‘What’s going on out there?’ They said, ‘It’s the peanut man, his peanuts are on fire!’ I took out the peanuts that had burned, and I dumped them in the street. It melted the snow right down to the concrete. The next week there An intimate gathering of Larry Owens’ customers. was a hockey game, and people came out saying, ‘Whatever you do, don’t give the peanut man any Although he is now inside at HSBC Arena, he was in the elements matches!’ A guy Harry who worked at The Aud and at the ballpark at The Aud, which had some unforeseen results. In the cold he used would say, ‘Hey, see that guy? The peanut guy? If he asks for a match, a peanut warmer with a propane stove underneath it, and one day he don’t give it to him!’” Larry has spent a long time living that down. turned the f lame up a little too high. “One of the bags caught on fire, BUFFALO STATE COLLEGE COURIER EXPRESS COLLECTION 1 2