Bar-B-Que Bill
by Bob Thomas
|
Bar-B-Que Bill The summers of my youth were filled with many wonderful things. I chased the Commies out ofKorea. I fought the Indian Wars and won. I shot un-told numbers of bad guys, Comanche Indians, bank robbers, Lions, Tigers and the occasional Go-rilla! I surveyed the Dakota Bad Lands from the peak of the garage roof, and I evaded the Japanese hordes by swinging from limb to limb in the Pecan Trees! I paid homage to Audie Murphy by re-creating his ‘Medal Of Honor’ winning heroics out behind PeeWee Barnhardt’s house. And I made the girls swoon at my version of John Wayne’s swagger! Made even more impressive, no doubt, by my, deep, throaty, 10 year old, “Howdy Ma’am”. But, one of the highlights of the week was my Dad’s Saturday afternoon Bar-b-Q ritual! It usually began aboutone o’clockin the afternoon when he started beating on the bbq stove with a stick. The intent being to ‘loosen up’ the cooked on tar, grease and etc. that was left over from the last cook out. He generally turned the stove upside down in Mother’s flower bed and whacked on it for 5 minutes or so. Then he declared it “Clean e’nuff” and stood it in the special place in the back yard that was designated for bar-b-que’ing. Away from combustible shrubs, and not under a tree! He would look at me and ask, “You ready for some Bar-B-Que”? “Yep”. (I should mention here that “Bar-B-Cue” to my Dad, and anyone else raised in the South, meant, “Anything cooked over gasoline infused charcoal briquets”! Usually steaks!) A while later he would emerge from the garage with a bag of charcoal, a bag of hickory ‘chunks’ he had gotten from a ‘friend down in Georgia’ who “knows” bar-b-cue, and a gallon can of premium gasoline! Also know as “white gas”. He would stack it all next to the stove and head to the kitchen for some reinforcements! Usually, his reinforcements consisted of about half a glass of “Four Roses Whiskey” followed by a half glass of tap water! Followed by a satisfying bellow of “Aahhhh”! He would clap his hands together an rub them briskly, turn to me and say, “Let’s light ‘er up”! We would proceed to the backyard, he in his cut-off dress pants, old worn out wingtips with no socks and undershirt with multiple holes, grass stains, paint stains and grease on it. Me in my jeans, tee-shirt and black PF Flyer tennis shoes. We advanced as if we were on our way to a coronation! He usually carried his ‘scepter’, which looked a whole lot like tongs, and a box of stick matches. I followed behind, his “Sous’ Chef”, carrying a long handled fork, spatula and pliers. (for lifting the hot grill)! First, he stacked the charcoal briquettes in a ‘special arrangement’. This arrangement was know only to a few privileged people. . . and I, nor anyone else in the “whole damned neighborhood”, knew the correct way to do it! I felt honored to be in the presence of greatness! After carefully arranging the charcoal, he would liberally douse it with “white gas” and allow it to ‘soak’ for a few minutes. He would tell me to ‘watch it’, while he went back inside the house. |
A few minutes later I would here “Aahhh!” from the house and he would emerge looking ‘refreshed’. Afterlicking his finger and checking the wind he would smell the stove to appraise the level of “White Gas-itivity”! After moving the can of gas about 20 feet away, he would remove a pair of matches from the box. One match, I noticed, was never sufficient, you always needed two. He would then take a stance, similar to a sprinter, facing away from the stove, light the two matches simultaneously and toss them at the stove. While the matches were still in the air he would ‘make his break’ for the far side of the yard! When the matches hit the gas fumes the entire stove would erupt in a ball of fire an smoke about 8 feet across, with a loud “WHOOSH”! The stove usually jumped 2 or 3 feet in the air and precariously teetered back and forth on it’s three legs for a few seconds.
As silence fell over the yard, and a black mushroom cloud floated up through the trees, my Dad would stand on his tiptoes about 10 feet away, peek at the stove and proclaim, “Perfect”!
It amazed me!
He could do it “perfectly” every time!
After the lighting ceremony, he would tell me to “watch it”, and head back into the house. As the flames settled down to only 3 or 4 feet high, I would ease up to the stove and begin ‘poking’ at it with the long handled fork. This usually brought a shout from the kitchen to… “Leave that damned fire alone Bobby! Don’t mess with it, just keep and eye on it”!
After about 20 minutes a “Yeeoow”! would float from the kitchen. (This indicated that the water had been eliminated from the formula!) and Dad would emerge from the house chewing a stick of Spearmint gum. (everyone knows that, if you can chew gum, and walk you ain’t drunk!) He would survey the fire and, usually, declare that it needed more “White Gas”! He would pick up the can of gasoline, tell me to “get over there” again, assume his runners stance with the can of gas held behind him and towards the fire. With a strange kind of ‘under handed, to the rear motion’ he would splash gas on the fire, while simultaneously launching himself into the hundred yard dash! Almost always, it worked! The fire would ‘whoosh’, the ball of smoke would rise, and the coals glowed white hot!
But, on one occasion, near disaster struck when the fire followed the stream of gas back towards my Dad. . . and the can of “White Gas”!
It happened so fast I just about didn’t see it! I just barely caught a glimpse of my Dad going around the corner of the house in a full-blown sprint! The gas can was mystically suspended in mid-air, and the trail of fire was chasing it across the lawn! The gas can landed in the grass and erupted in flame about the same time as a stream of water came from around the corner of the house and put it out!
My Dad had run to the faucet in the front of the house, grabbed the hose, turned on the water and returned in about 3 seconds!
I think that’s still a worlds record for the 100 yard, around the house, dash!
After we had cleaned up the yard, gotten the coals to just the right stage for cooking, and cooked up a half dozen ‘high octane’ burgers, my Dad put his arm around me and said:
“Almost got us, didn’t it”? “Yep”.
“We don’t have to tell your Mother about this one do we”?
“Nope”
“How’s your bike riding”?
“O.K.”. He always asked about my bike because he was the Schwinn Bike Salesman.
“You want some new white walls for it”?
“Yep”.
“How ’bout a ‘Hula Doll’ for the handlebars”?