Small Town Southern Man

Alan Jackson's video would be embedded here if embedding weren't disabled for it. Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUhaqUHGeQU

I just got back from my cousins' graduation party. Four of 'em graduated this year, and two of them (the closest two) were among the first third-generation of graduates from the school. Of course, "party" in our family is code for "pig roast and a keg." Since it was Frontier Days, there was not a CO2 cartridge to be found within literally 50 miles of Colorado Springs, not even for a beer deliveryman's family, so one of the boys got one in Lamar and drove in with it. If they hadn't found one, I'm pretty sure someone would have either shot a hole in the keg or attached the shop air compressor to it.

I always forget how much I love being out in the sticks with the ranchers until I go back. The spaces are big, the buildings small, the trucks required and the roads undivided or dirt. Life is a hell of a lot more simple. The high school had its biggest graduating class ever with 58 graduates. They had all been going to school together since they started school. Peyton is a small town. I also noticed that my family are all very short, since it was the first time I'd seen 'em since elementary school. They're good people.

Redneck Recipes

I mentioned that we really DO have a lot of uses for bacon grease. One of them is to just leave it in the pan when making scrambled eggs. Makes then ten times better. Another use for bacon grease is lamp fuel. Seriously, I've seen it done. It's a little inefficient, but you have a hell of a lot of grease and not much parrafin when you're a farmer. Think of "backwards" farmers in Missouri. You probably just pictured someone I'm related to, and if they ever find out what you called them, you in for a whuppin'.

Remember, we take pride in our barbeque, and it is a talent handed down from father to son. Then the son comes up with his own way, and repeats. I cook by smell, not time. If it smells right and looks done, it's done. There is a large grey area in the term "right." This is why barbeque is an art. It will take trial and error for you to learn what's "right" for you. Volumes are deliberately vague.

Here's another redneck recipe. Chili. This chili has won chili cookoffs. This chili has fed families for weeks. This chili is MINE.

You'll be needing

• 2 pounds of chuck steak
• some taters
• two big-ass cans of tomato paste
• one normal can of chicken stock
• three big carrots
• an onion
• some Stubb's Smokey Mesquite BBQ sauce (trust me, no substitutes)
• the talent to light and feed a hot, extremely smokey maple fire. NO ACCELERANTS!
• roasted semi-mild peppers-- buy from the dudes by the highway and freeze.

Grill your steak. Chop everything. Put tomato paste, chicken stock in stewpot on grill. Stir. Smokey fire, close lid. Wait a few minutes. Stoke fire. Open lid. Stir. Repeat until 2/3 to 1/2 original volume. Add a glob of BBQ sauce. Stir. Taste. Add more to taste, keep it a little weaker than "it oughta be". Add fixin's. Stir. Stoke fire. Plenty of smoke. close lid (your pot is ALWAYS uncovered). You should have a medium-hot fire. You know your grill, it's thermometer, and the lies it tells. You know what medium-hot look like in the language of thermometer-lie. Keep your smoke going for as long as you have patience for, and ten minutes after that. Taste. Serve. NEVER cover it while it's hot. This'll keep and keep and keep.

You can adjust this recipe. One of my favorite ways is to dump in a bunch of hot bacon grease. Another use for the grease is to mix it with Worstershire suace and marinate your steak in it before grilling. You'll thank me.

What could possibly go wrong?

Let me get this straight...

You build a giant slingshot, very near to a large stand of trees. You strap yourself into it and have your buddy on a his ATV tow you at least 100 feet and then let you go.

You do not bring a helmet.

You do not bring a change of underwear.

What could possibly go wrong?

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&vid=33c89eca-bd1f-4ea4-8d97-f429c2b9cee0&playlist=videoByTag:tag:most%20watched%20viral:ns:MSNVideo_Top_Cat:mk:us:vs:0&from=MSNHP&tab=m1192124571607&GT1=28114

If I could embed, I would. Sorry.

Holiday spirit

Many of you are wondering whether you turn into a redneck around the holidays. That's mighty handy, because it gives me something to do. Maybe the holidays are the only time you're not a redneck. That's fine, too.

Many people have no problems giving fruitcakes as gifts. I believe the reason for this is as some sort of metaphor for dumping useless things on the laps of people who bother us. Most people believe that it is not a metaphor, that fruitcakes really are useless. This is not true. Just because you don't eat the fruitcakes you receive does not mean that you don't use them in some way.

How do you normally deal with a fruitcake until you can get rid of it? If your partner bought you something you didn't like for your birthday, you might keep it, you might discreetly return it. But it is found almost universally tacky to pass on that gift to someone else as a gift. And yet, the preferred fruitcake disposal method that I have encountered is to pass it on to someone else. Sometimes even at the same party. Other times, people will keep it for a year and ship it to the offending gifter, postage due.

These are unsophisticated solutions, especially taking the fruitbrick from Aunt Bea, walking halfway across the room, and giving it to Cousin Sue.


Another instance where we will behave in a different manner around the holidays is with our neighbors. The rest of the year, our relationships with them are often cordial, fleeting, and full of assumptions about the other person's opinion of us. But when the holiday season draws near, things simplify to a lighting contest. Bigger is better. Simple, unsophisticated logic.

Many of you are likely great friends with your neighbors around this time of year. You might help each other with your decorations, or go to the same parties. There is no major competition between you. You might think that this keeps you safe from making a redneck out of yourself. You're wrong. You'll see.

While I'm on the subject of holiday parties, I would like to talk a bit about Thanksgiving, the holiday that just passed. Turkey Day is often a great time for families to get together, catch up, and park on the lawn. When the party is in a remote part of Penrose (which is itself pretty remote), a paved parking area is logically out of the question. The area of ground undergoing lawn-pattern-baldness because you're letting it grow wild is a very good place to park a fleet of vehicles. They'll even knock back some of the taller weeds. That degree of parking flexibility, though, will not be available to suburbanites, or those who find themselves hosting a large shindig in their apartment, condo, or loft. Think ahead before hosting a get-together this Christmas if you live in an area that doens't have the appropriate parking. Your well-trimmed and fed Kentucky Blues won't take kindly to a visitor's Taurus. It is rather rude and will redden your neck when you allow 30 cars to park up and down your residential block just to keep them off your grass.