Is that parsley?

The Mt. bethal Fire Company hosted a wonderful one day event last Saturday. It was a small competition, along the lines of the old Hillsboro competition. It was fun, and we ran across a team we knew. It's always fun to know some of the crazies befor getting down to the cut throat intensity of small time high performance barbeque. So, as usual, the day started with Mimosas and the standard meet inspection. "Ya done this before?". Me,"Yep". "got ice?". Me,"Yep". "good luck.". Me,"thanks!" And the game was afoot. To the sound of Janice Joplin screaming"take a little piece of my heart" from my Ipad, I got the fire going. While I prepped the ribs and chicken, I sang along with the Monkeys as they sang "I'm going to buy me a dog". At this point I paused and noticed that several af the other teams were staring at me. Was it my kilt? We're they admiring Redneck (camo) tartan? Why was the small child crying? Suddenly, it was crystal clear. Since the batteries in my external speaker were exhausted, I was using my ear buds. A number of very adamant contestants confirmed what my wife has said for years. Apparently I do not do justice to Janice Joplin or the Monkeys. Having been thusly enlightened, we hunkered down in true Memphis fashion for a hard run for the money. I switched to Makers Mark, and put the Stones on. We were rocking...and this time, because my bride had arrived with additional supplies, we had batteries for the speaker. Instantly, Landi was a rock star. I had to promise the small child I would not sing along. So, we barbequed, sipped bourbon, and visited with a wonderful bunch of folks. Finally, time for turn in arrived, and we learned a lesson. Everyone who competes in Kansas City Barbeque Society events knows that you can not garnish with Kale. Using Kale gets you an automatic one. As there are three criteria that are judged on a scale of one, the worst, to ten, the best, it is not difficult to determine that a one is catastrophic. As of this writing, both my bride and myself can now tell the difference between Curley Parsely and Kale. Even with getting "ones" for a third of our scores, we finished sixth overall. As with most BBQ competitions, it really became more about making friends than winning. And as I promised so many whom I gave acard to, heres where I barbeque every Wednesday. KC'S Korner is located at 100 Oak tree road in South Plainfield. Y'all come see us!

Units of Measure

It has become apparent to me that not all people in the north are enlightened as to Southern Units of Measure.  I have been here neigh on twenty years, and have completely mastered the yankee language, and have endeavoured to these pagan folks the proper way to speak Mr. Lee's Language, but alas, it is a task meant for Sisyphus.

So, as a primer, let us discuss units of measure.  There are three fundamental units of measure in the Southern Vernacular.  'Aint caught shit', 'a Mess' and 'a shitload'.

'Ain't caught shit' means that you have caught less than a dozen catfish.

'A mess of Catfish' means that you have caught between a dozen and two dozen catfish.  All have to be 2 lbs  or better.

'A shitload' of Catfish means that you have caught more than two dozen catfish.  Anytime you have caught a shitload of Catfish, it is Arkansas state law that you have to buy two cases of beer to feed to your friends who come over to help skin the fish.  You don't even have to be in Arkansas to have that law enforced.

Some things about fishing that may not be apparent to my northern friends should be mentioned at this point.  They need help.  They dont know what night crawlers are.  Night crawlers are worms....not vampires.   Stink bait really does stink.  Bloodbait is really made from blood.  If you are fishing with dynamite, always start the motor before you light the fuse.  A failure to do so frequently results in an abrupt and unpleasant expulsion from the gene pool.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Blue Eyes

They say all babies have blue eyes. I don't know how true that is, but her's were the bluest I have ever seen. She smiled even before her first breath, and when she finally cried, I did too. Time changes all of us, and her eyes are no longer blue, they are green. Not that I would know. I tell my young friends that the very best part of their life begins when they have children. Helping someone grow from child to adult is an amazing experience. There is no mountain they cannot climb, no sea they can not swim , no challenge they can not conquer. We learn more from our children than they learn from us. On this day in 1986, my first born arrived. Her eyes twinkled, and my heart melted. Since then she has broadened then English language (Define 'moose'). She is the most resilient person I have ever met. She is strong, confident, and knowledgeable. She is a fine athlete and a scholar. She is everything Nana knew she could be and all that Daddydoc hoped she would be. Happy birthday Jenn!

The Third Garage Sale

We had visited two garage sales before she whispered "Over here".  On a table covered with someone's memories, sat two old seltzer bottles.  They were like the ones the Three Stooges used to spray each other with.  Their significance long forgotten, they had rested quietly on someone's shelf for years until today when they found themselves sitting on a table in the sunshine of an April Saturday.   She saw them first.

I heard him say "Jackie, What in the hell are you going to do with a couple of damned old bottles?"  He never liked that kind of stuff.

She looked carefully at the bottles, checking the markings on the bottom, and the almost invisible seams up the sides.  She read the etching on the sides of the bottles.  One was from the Bronx, but the other was from Philly.  She looked closely at the pump mechanism, and worked the levers up and down a couple of time.

"Just more damn junk", he said shaking his head and looking up at the new leaves of yet another spring.

Finally, she looked at the little old lady, and said "How much?"

"Two dollars"

"I'll take them.", I said, and I realized just how much I miss Mom and Dad.

Computers, Apes and Barbeque. It Must Be Summer!

I arrived at the Sabatelli household at 8:30AM last Saturday and the barbeque season officially opened about thirty minutes later when bourbon first splashed onto the ice in my dixie cup.  Roughly 40 lbs of ribs and 40 lbs of yard bird accompanied by Cajun Green Beans and barbequed bean helped a crowd of about 40 celebrate the christening of the youngest of the Sabatelli clan.

Doing barbeques like this are fun because you get a chance to visit with interesting people.  Most are friendly and eager to visit, especially about barbeque.  After quaffing a few cocktails, invarriably questions arise as to exactly how a redneck like me got into barbequing in New Jersey.  In most cases, I am on my own, and can pretty much keep the story telling to the fun side of insane, but not this day.  This day veered off into the "You gotta be kidding me." side of insane. 

There is a guy named Karounos.  I used to work with him in one of the sewers of hell.  Interesting thing about this sewer, I met and worked with the finest, most incredible group of techo-nuts in the world.  In a company run by a world class lunatic, these guys accomplished the impossible in a circus atmosphere.  At any moment, a nurf gun war could suddenly break out, or Lockwood would stroll to the front of the Zoo isle, and fling a baseball, yep a real baseball, at Sabs.  Of course Sabs would take great offense at being suddenly hit with a baseball, but Lockwood would say loudly "Shut up!  Take your base!", and walk off.

Just to set your expectations, once, while being led by an apparetnly reasonable and sane Captain America, better known as Vida, the entire group was asked to leave a funeral.  They had not misbehaved in any way, but the daughter of the deceased thought it was the better part of discretion to kick them out.  I would call it a precautionary expulsion.

So Karounos is at the party, has a couple of beers and starts telling stories about our time in the sewer, and things that were learned there.   My favorite is the story about why you should always hire professional movers to move expensive servers.  When I say "expensive", I'm talking hundreds of thousands of dollars expensive.  The reason for this is that Information Technology professionals like Karounos, Mr. Frank and I can not tell a hard shifting transmission in a top heavy box truck hauling a half million dollar computer being driven in stop and go traffic by a crazed Greek from a half million dollar computer sliding around and slamming into the walls in the back of the box truck being driven in stop and go traffic by a crazed Greek.  Let's just say it worked a lot better before we moved it.

I was disappointed that the Naked Ape wasn't at the party.  The Ape's favorite game is 'naked stick'.  After drinking a keg or so of beer, the Ape has been known to strip naked and run through neighborhoods.   We call him the Naked Ape because he is the most muscled up human being any of us have ever seen.  In that Sabitelli recently purchased this home, and all the neighbors I met were very nice, I suspect I know why the Naked Ape wasn't there.  I'll bet he doesn't even have the address.

So, the summer has begun, and The Memphis Barbeque Company is back in action.  Right now, the only competition we plan on participating in is the Mount Bethel Barbeque Contest in Warren NJ, on June 9.  The event at Sab's house was not a kilted event (women can get out of hand), but the contest at the firehouse will be.

Also, we are cooking every Wednesday at KC's Korner in South Plainfield.  So, get sober enough to drive, and come on by.

Remember, it's amazing what you can do with a dead pig.

A Summer Job

The chill of the morning reminds me that winter is closing in on us, and as a result, opportunities to barbeque at KC's Korner will soon be dwindling. As a barbeque professional, this development is somewhat disheartening because it means that I will soon have an aboundance of time on my hands. Consequently, I've begun looking for other opportunites to occupy my time.

In my long career, I've had a variety of jobs. One of the first I had involved pouring concrete for the 'new' Library at Arkansas State University. Of course, this 'new' library was being built in the summer of 1976. My job was to help pour concrete into forms for a concrete column. The columns were roughly fourteen feet tall and two and a half feet wide on each side. A huge crane would lift a steel bucket containing one cubic yard of wet concrete, and I would climb up the 2x4s that braced the forms and were held in place by things called 'froglegs'. Standing so that my waist was at the top of the form, I would reach up and guide the huge steel bucket so that it was over the top of the form. When the bucket was positioned just right, I pulled the release bar down, and a gate on the bottom of the bucket opened, allowing a stream of concrete roughly twelve inches in diameter to flow down filling up the forms. For all the construction jobs I had had to date, this was the best. No sweating....No lifting....No hauling..,..Three dollars an hour to climb the forms and pull the lever. Sweet.

Usually.

As with all sweet gigs, sometimes things go badly. One day in the heat of the summer, I was standing on top of the forms, and the crane operator, Bozo, had a bad day. Actually, his day wasn't all that bad, but mine got dramatically worse very rapidly.

As Bozo manoeuvred the bucket containing a cubic yard of wet cement toward the column I was standing on, something out of the ordinary happened. The bucket suddenly dropped about 2 feet, and swung rapidly to the left, toward the form I was standing on. A cubic yard of cement in a steel bucket has a good amount of kinetic energy. It was barely moving when it bumped the form, but it was like a freight train bumping a litter basket, the litter basket loses.

The form, originally made up of 2x4s and plywood, instantly turned into splinters. It wasn't a gradual thing. It was a 'touch' thing....like when you turn on the light switch, the light is 'on' right then. Well, when the bucket contacted the form, the form was shattered right then.

I had that Wiley Coyote feeling. The form I was standing on was no longer there. I was fourteen feet in the air, looking for something to grab so that I did not fall onto the concrete pad that the forms for the column rested on.

In a crisis, your mind works so fast that the world seems to slow down. As gravity took hold of me and started pulling me toward the concrete pad, I reached out for the bucket. If I could just get a hand on the metal rim around the bucket, I might be able to hang on.

I stretched with my left hand as far as I could, and just as my feet felt the forms fall away, I got a grip on something. I swung my right hand over and also got a grip. The forms crashed to the pad below, and my momentum caused me to swing toward the bucket, and then, unfortunately, I swung under the bucket and I realized that I had not grabbed the bar around the rim of the bucket. I had grabbed the release bar.

As I swung beneath the gate at the bottom, my weight on the release bar caused the gate to open, releasing the concrete. One cubic yard of concrete, in a 12 inch diameter stream hit me in the chest. I lost the grip I had on the bar. I fell fourteen feet, landing flat on my back on the broken remains of the forms, and was promptly buried by one cubic yard of wet concrete. The guys on the crew immediately jumped into the pit and began digging me out of the concrete using shovels.

That was the last time I climbed a form.

The Saucon Valley Country Club

As we continue to rehabilitate the basement from water damage incurred during August's Hurricane, I am finding interesting items long forgotten and stored in remote regions of the basement. With each item, there is usually some memory attached that brings a smile.

The other day, in the back of the storage room in the basement, I came across Landi's golf clubs. When we were dating, we used to play frequently, but we haven't played for years. Her clubs were in the corner of the storage room and I checked the bag for water damage. As I inspected the bag, on the shoulder strap, a smear of mud caught my eye, and I remembered the last time we played golf.

In the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, there is a wonderful Country Club called Saucon Valley. It is a beautiful, high end country club that, were Landi not associated at the time with Bethlehem Steel, we would never had had occasion to visit or play. However, through a Bethlehem Steel event of some sort, we found our selves at this incredible golf course.

Landi was beautiful that day. She was wearing white shorts and a blue knit top of some sort. She had a white visor, and white golf shoes. Her golf bad was white, as was her golf glove. She had her hair in a pony tail, and a late summer tan. I wore dockers and a polo shirt.

Saucon Valley's course is one of those courses where the fairways are better than a lot of greens that I grew up playing on. We played our round with another two-some associated with Bethlehem Steel. They were much better golfers than us, but we were better looking.

The 18^th hole, was a long, down hill dog leg par four, with a small stream crossing at the bottom of the valley. Both of the other golfers in our foursome drove over the stream and into perfect position. I bearly cleared the stream, and Landi came up short. I drove her to her ball, and she asked me to go ahead and find my ball, that she would walk to me. I drove the cart to the little bridge over the stream and began looking for my ball.

Landi swung, and her ball flew towards the green. I still can't find my ball. I saw the other two golfers waiting, so I told them to go ahead and hit. I had lost a couple of balls already, and I didn't think I had another with me. So I kept looking for it, and I looked up just in time to see Landi kind of hop over the stream. It was a short hop. An easy hop, really. Actually, it was more of a long stride with just a little extra umph at the end, and she very gracefully cleared the stream without any distress at all.

The ground on the side she what coming from was firm, solid and dry. The other side of the stream was not. It was utterly saturated. Her lead foot landed on the soft green grass on the other side, and she sank up to her knee in muck. Her trailing leg completed the stride across the stream, and had no place to go but also knee deep into the muck. At this point, only her golf shoes were muddy.

I viewed this from a short distance away, and immediately came to her assistance. I remembered the old Tarzan movies where one guy stuck in quick sand quickly drags another to his doom too when he is pulled into the quick sand. No way, I thought, I was getting into the mud.

All thing considered, at this point, Landi was doing well. She was stuck in the mud yes, but she was calm. I grabbed a golf club to use to help pull her out. By having her grab the golf club, and using it to pull her out, I hoped to be able to stay on solid ground, and avoid the mud. She took hold of the club and I started pulling, but the mud on her hands caused her lose her grip. Because she was pulling so hard, when the club slipped out of her hands, she flopped backwards and sat down in the mud. When the club slipped from her hands, I was straining, pulling the club trying to lift her out. Suddenly losing that resistance, my hands, clutching the head of the 3 iron, crashed into my nose, which began bleeding profusely.

I ventured closer, and extended my hand to her, and again we pulled and strained, and the grass beneath my feet gave way, and suddenly, I was flat on my back in the mud. Landi's calm was wearing thin. I got up, and I grabbed her under the arms, and using brute strength, tried to lift her out of the mud, and again, my feet slipped in the mud and I went down. I sat down in front of her, and reached out to her, and tried again. Her leg was slowly coming free, and suddenly she shouts, STOP!

What's wrong? “I'm losing my shoe!!” Screw the shoe. I'll get the shoe in a minute. We kept pulling and straining and after a great sucking/slerping sound, her foot came free, and we rolled into the more firm grass. We were tired, exhausted really. Finally, after catching our breath, I started to head to the golf cart.

'My shoe?”, Landi reminded me.

I walked back over to the mud pit we had created. It was a hell of a mess. The groundkeeper was going to wonder what the hell happened here. I found the hole. I got on my knees, and stuck my arm down until I felt the golf shoe. I pulled it out of the muddy water, held it aloft, and watched as what looked like Hershey's Syrup poured from it. I looked over at Landi, and she looked like she had been dipped in Hershey's Syrup. I had to smile.

The other two players in our foursome had finished the hole, and were sitting on the patio at the Club House when we arrived. When they last saw us, we looked like we could have been in a photo shoot for a golf magazine, but that had changed. Both of us were covered from head to toe in a dark brown mud, and were coated with an abundance of grass clippings. Blood from my nose spattered on my shirt and pants just added a special ambiance.

I wish I had a picture of the looks on their faces, and the faces of the others at the patio bar. This is one of the most exclusive Country Clubs in the United States, and this golf course has hosted many a PGA,and LPGA event. We walked dripping mud and trailing grass trimmings into the patio bar, and sat with our friends, who had a truly horrified look on their face. They were staring, slack jawed and silent.

The manager or waiter approached, looking very apprehensive.

“Can I help you?”, he inquired.

I wiped at my nose and looked to see if it was still bleeding, “Tough hole.” I said casually.