As I look back on my nearly 73 years I have two big regrets, one is that I never served my country in the military, and number two is that I never learned how to barbecue. For a person who has made his living off the beef business, I realize there are no good excuses for not being a grill master, but I’m going to offer up some anyway. First, this Pitts never had a proper pit. And because I went to bull sales nearly every weekend, when most barbecues are held, I never had the opportunity. Even if I was home on a rare weekend my wife was working most Saturday and Sunday nights at the grocery store and I hardly think it would have been proper to have a barbecue by myself while she was slaving away.
The best reason I have for not becoming a man tested by fire is because I am terrified by it. As a youngster I was asleep in my bed at 2:00 AM when my brand new electric blanket caught fire and my bed became a raging inferno with me in it. It was bad enough that my mother had purchased it from her father’s furniture store but even more embarrassing when the fire chief of the volunteer fire department arrived and he just so happened to be the very same furniture store owner. Yes, my Grandpa.
You might say fire doesn’t light my fire. When I die I’ve left specific instructions that there will be no cremation.
Barbecuing is quintessential maleness, an element of danger plus the use of tools. It is living life on the wild side without pilot lights, timers, knobs or thermostats. It’s a macho thing that allows men to revert back to their cave man origins. I know I’m a lesser man because I’ve never mastered the art but I never had a barbecue role model. My dad was a long haul trucker and hardly ever home. And if he was home a typical barbecue at my house went like this. My father would awake some weekend morning and say to my mom, “Why don’t you take tonight off and I’ll barbecue?” She would groan and trudge off to the butcher shop to buy two steaks we couldn’t afford. They were great steaks but I had to take the grownup’s word for it because kids got hamburgers at our house because we couldn’t squander hard-earned cash on kids. I was 21 years old and out of college before I ever tasted that most delectable of all food stuffs, filet mignon.
When my mom got home from the store my father would announce that he’d invited a couple over who my mom hated. So it was back to the market to buy two more steaks which at this point we REALLY couldn’t afford. My mom would make my brother and I mow the lawn, pick up after the dog and spritz the place up for company. My dad would announce that since he’d be cooking and doing all the heavy lifting that evening, he was going to take a nap, while my mom baked pies, prepared all the fixings, set the table, cleaned the grill and laid the kindling and wadded up newspaper for the fire. Then my dad would give it a big squirt of starter fluid and ceremoniously light the inferno. Usually it was such a huge fire I expected my grandfather to show up any minute with his siren blaring.
While my father was attempting to bring the fire under control by squirting water on it, my mom was seasoning the steaks before taking them to my dad to ceremoniously put on the grill. “And fetch us another beer while you’re not doing anything,” he’d say to my mom.
Then at just the right moment, the make or break moment of any barbecue, my father would take the steaks off the grill. Then he’d burn the bread, and our hamburger buns. With his big job finally concluded he could let his hair down, accept accolades for a wonderful dinner and enjoy a few more beers for a job medium well done.
My folks invariably concluded every barbecue with a big fight because my mom didn’t appreciate all the work my dad had done so she could enjoy a night off.
