GROWING UP IN WISCONSIN -- WHEN EVERY SINGLE “ONE”
WAS “THE GREATEST FOURTH OF JULY!”
Can it be another year? How fast they go by and are devoured by our intense love for life. Each year at this time, my memory bank opens up a special pigeon-hole.
Out flows the joyour memories of how we celebrated past birthday anniversaries of our beloved country, America. The images and sounds come roaring out as noisily and dependable as Fibber McGee's closet. I have to repeat the following memory I wrote a couple of years ago and modify each time I use it. This memory was recently renewed by a trip to Wisconsin and beautiful Beaver Lake went we visited the Ralph Siefert family and were united with some 20 friends from Wauwatosa Class of '53!
"And with every stop along the way to consider and enjoy a precious memory, we must also also match it with a hopeful look to our future and our next step in this marvelous journey God has given us! - n.p.
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I remember so clearly standing on our pier at Beaver Lake in 1948, lighting and throwing cherry bombs into the water. Some will remember those cherry bombs, no longer legal anywhere in the U.S., had a waterproof plastic wick that allowed it to sink a couple of feet before igniting like a depth charge with a deep Baaaarooop! -- and a giant bubble full of smoke would break the lake's surface.
The sound of firecrackers could be heard all day long around the lake and we did our part making noise with four brothers and two sisters trying all kinds of creative things as we awaited nightfall and the beauty of chemical color that the mortars and skyrockets would provide.
During the war we had difficulty getting punk to light the firecrackers so we used a six-inch piece of frayed cotton clothesline and kept it glowing by blowing on it. Another year, I was probably 12 or 13, we thought we’d be cool and justify the presence of a cigarette in our fingers, explaining that we were using it to light firecrackers. When we were told that you have to drag on the cigarette to keep it lit, our parents torpedoed our cool plan of blatant mischievousness.
Speaking of torpedoes – do you remember them? They were white and about the size of a malted-milk ball or a mothball. My brothers cherished the four and five inch “cannon crackers” (Yes, there used to be firecrackers that large.) But my favorite sound maker was the “torpedo.” When you threw one against a hard surface – like a brick wall or a cement sidewalk – it would explode with gusto. Torpedoes were awesomely loud until they began to downsize them for safety reasons. We used to waste them by trying to throw them to the pavement from the window of a moving car. We finally figured out that the horizontal speed of the car negated the vertical speed of our throw so it just plopped on the pavement. With the speed my brother was driving his 1938 souped up and channeled Mercury convertible, I wouldn’t have heard the explosion anyway -- even if the physics of the project were correct.
The ban on public use of fireworks in Wisconsin in the 1950's was a sad day for my brothers and me. Why should the "pros" be allowed to have all the fun? By not banning fireworks, South Carolina produced the well-known "South of the Border" fireworks mega supermarket on I-95 that still sells millions of dollars of colorful explosive displays. And what about the huge operations on I-24 east of Chattanooga and the superstores in South Carolina on I-85? It’s just a short trip for clandestine Atlantans to acquire their celebration hardware and software in a short drive. And that doesn't even take in the state of Texas, Florida and others who are allowed to sell and use these wonderful noisemakers. I just learned that fireworks are now legal in Georgia as long as. whatever it is, does not fly higher than 20 feet -- so small firecrackers, pinwheels, and fountains can now be legally used in 2005 for the first time. Residents can now do what I've seen them do for the past 45 years in Atlanta.
In Georgia, many will continue to celebrate illegally with bottle rockets, small mortars, repeating aerial reports, and legally with Black Cat Salutes, fountains, flares, and pinwheels at Fourth of July, New Years Eve, and often Christmas week.
"My three sons" used to be the entertainment center of Gainesbourgh West, right off the north loop of I-285. It seemed like the neighbors were always ready and waiting for the Plunkett boy’s semi-annual, creative interpretations of light, sound and smell. The response from the neighbors in applause and cheering was often as loud as the presentation.
If you’re a boomer or older, chances are you look back on your “Fourth of Julys” with special fondness because of family picnics and the anticipation of what usually happened during the day’s celebration. Oh, for sure, kids and families still enjoy the celebration today as they establish their own memories, but it's from a whole different perspective.
The “Fourth” was always the highlight of summer for me. I'm sure many of us thought about the freedom we enjoy and were grateful for this unique country many times during the year -- especially with the lasting events of WW2 clearly etched in our minds and hearts and the immense loss of men and women in the military. But I’m also sure in actuality, since the majority of us had not been touched by a personal loss, that we were more grateful for the one chance a year we had to specifically celebrate the founding of our country – a unique nation founded on faith in God and biblical principles.
Last year, Mary and I listened to David McCullough’s John Adams audio book as we drove across the country. It’s was a wonderful, enlightening experience. Not only were we reminded about what was involved in the formation and establishment of America, but more specifically the role John and Abigail Adams and other leaders played in that real-life drama. The importance of God for each of them is so evident in history and in their writings. It was this faith in their Creator God and his son, Jesus Christ that impacted all of life for those who formed our nation. Everything they did revolved around a deep faith and commitment to their Creator God. You might say that God was not prominent in their lives, but preeminent – meaning not just "First," but "First" in every area of their life. We are probably going to do the same thing with McCullough's new book on George Washington. I highly recommend it.
I’ve been an “old guy” for sometime now so I won't be messing around with explosives. But I did just get back from Florida and have some fountains, sparklers, pin wheels and some half-inch Lady Fingers you can light and hold with your fingers while it goes off – which was a sign of great personal male virility when I was a pre-teen.. (Make sure that you’re holding the Lady Finger with your thumb and forefinger AND only at the extreme bottom tip of the Lady Finger!)
Dad's favorites were fireworks at night. As soon as it was dark and there was an audience of family and friends, he would ignite two Roman Candles in each hand moving them in a circular motion. For years I thought Dad’s conductor movements were the reason the colored, flaming balls escaped the three-foot tube spreading an impressive arc of color out over the water.
Dad seemed to always have trouble with pinwheels. They would be nailed to the Cottonwood trees next to the beach at Beaver Lake, but for some reason the pinwheel would get hung up before burning out and stop after a rapid blazing start. If not that, I remember when not all three of the powder tubes would fire up so the pinwheel would just sit there with one colorful jet taking it nowhere.
Dad’s "piece of resistance" was the six-inch mortars he paid $5.00 apiece for! And $5 in the late 1940’s was a whole lotta money. These mini-bombs required a two or three-foot launching tube that had half of it sunk into beach sand. He would light the 16-inch fuse, and all of us would excitedly watch the fuse burn up to the rim of the tube and then disappear. Suddenly, with sparks flying, the mortar would roar out of the tube with a loud FA-THWAP!
Out and up, the flying bomb would travel over the lake resulting in an explosion and shower of color that would generate "ahhhhhhhhs!" and applause from the small lakeside audience. Dad usually had ten to fifteen mortars (sky rockets) and they were carefully and reverently ignited one at a time. It was much too long a pause between explosions for a ten-year old boy, but Dad wanted us to appreciate the excitement and beauty of each gunpowder sky painting. Like Jean Shepherd's Dad, my father was in his glory. During the 1940’s, Dad conducted a mean fireworks show every Fourth whether it was our church picnic out at Utica Lake in Dousman or a family gathering at Beaver Lake.
Now the grandsons have assumed the “heavy responsibility” of maintaining the continuity of “meaningful” family traditions in this constantly changing world.
Jon is traveling to Wisconsin to be part of a Fourth of July pyrotechnic show. Grandpa Plunkett would be so proud of the show they put on up in Waupaca. If you’re interested in seeing a video of their show in 2003, we have provided a Flash presentation for fireworks aficionados. Click the link below.
Chris is back in his beloved Uinta Wilderness and Flaming Gorge Resevoir where he's working once again as a hydrologist. "Dad, I have to do a quality check on the Green River and do it in a canoe. Tough job, eh?" I'm sure he will celebrate the Fourth of July creatively and not endanger the forest.
Norm Jr., who's now 47, Mary and I will hold the fort on East Nancy Creek in Atlanta and maybe hold a couple of Lady Fingers and light a pinwheel.
The links I've provided below are really sensational, especially the Nova and Zambelli sites. On the Zambelli site you can design your own fireworks show with sound on their DESKTOP page.
"Those were the days, my friend!” We never ever thought they'd end! But they certainly did and will for you too.
And you young parents, "These ARE the days, my friend!" And you know they'll end -- so enjoy! Sure hope when this Fourth of July is over, it will be one that added to the memory bank of all those you love.
We are all familiar with this paining by Gilbert Starling Jones. Whether his dramatic and beautiful setting is legend, tradition or fact -- the "Prayer at Valley Forge" remians a symbol of faith for the majority of Americans... at least for now .
With Gratitude and Pride
'Tis Pride with these old men
To tell what they have seen.
'Twill be Pride, when we are old,
To say that in our youth
We heard the tales they told
And looked on them in their truth.
- Anonymous
From The Picket Post,
Published by the Valley Forge Historical Society
April, 1945, No. 9
DID GEN. WASHINGTON PRAY AT VALLEY FORGE?
,
Few incidents in the life and actions of Washington, while he was Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces battling for The Independence of the American Colonies have been more controversial or more often related than the "Prayer of Valley Forge." Did he, or did he not, pray at the Winter Encampment is quite as familiar to readers of historical tomes touching the American Revolution as "to be or not to be" is to the average man who may or may not know further about the Bard of Avon.
No attempt is made, presently, by this compiler to establish documentary proof that Washington was seen at Valley Forge in supplication upon the Divine Will in the need of Almighty direction. The purpose, more especially, is to direct the readers' thoughts into a channel whereby to essay the relations of an episode, be it traditional or fact, that may furnish a key to the inner depths of the character of the great and lonely man at Valley Forge -- a character so needed in today's world.
With such purpose it seems fitting to recount the Potts version of the Encampment prayer, to offer a vastly different and little known account as found in the detailed story by an Ex-Pension Agent, and to present some evidences of the great leader's prayerful attitude as revealed by the records. Reference to Potts version first appeared in 1816, the 17th Edition of the "Life of George Washington, with Curious Anecdotes" by the Rev. Mason L. Weems, formerly rector of Mount Vernon Parish.
Henry Woodman in his "History of Valley Forge," 1850, has this to say; "I have heard it said, that Washington used often to retire to solitary places, and on one of these occasions he was discovered by Isaac Potts engaged in vocal prayer.
How far this account is correct I am not prepared to say. But I have heard the circumstances related and the spot was pointed out to me several years before I saw the account published." It should be noted that Woodman was born in the location of the old Valley Forge Campground. He wrote,, During my youth, father, a veteran of the Revolution and of Valley Forge, frequently walked over the camp site with the me telling stories of his camp life and pointing out locations where incidents happened.
In 1918, the Valley Forge Park Commission refused a request by a patriotic organization for permission to erect a monument or marker on the spot where it was claimed Washington was seen kneeling in prayer. The Commission's report reviewed its examination of the thousands of pages of correspondence and diaries of the Commander-in-Chief and his staff; generals of divisions and brigades; officers and privates of regiments; the Congressional Committee who were at the camp; manuscripts in the Library of Congress and other institutions where Revolutionary matter is preserved. It concluded by observing, "in none of these were found a single paragraph that will substantiate the tradition of the 'Prayer at Valley Forge.'"
A PERSONAL NOTE: If you read 1776 you're keenly aware of the resources Washington had for an army. Poor attitudes in too many of the men, poor supplies from clothing, shoes, food and weapons, outnumbered so many times and no match for the professional British army. The only way the Continental Army finally won was by the direct intervention of God, or if that's too hard for you to handle, "the incredible sequence of luck, or perhaps Zeus.
If I were saddled with such an overwhelming task, I'd be praying at every opportunity I could take.... and I'm sure that's what George Washington did based on the record of his life. Whether Valley Forge was one of his spots is not the issue.
The fact that private and public prayer and a deep faith in God was a part of President Washington's normal, everyday life -- and that of many of the other leaders of that day --IS THE IMPORTANT FACT IN THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA! - n plunkett
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA! Thanks for the freedom we Seniors have enperieced and appreciated... and is rapidly disintegrating as we become a liberal, secular nation that no longer focuses on individual responsibility and achievement. Our country will always be beautiful but perhaps not its government as it slowly continues to remove certain liberties and freedoms that have stood the test of time enacts laws that infringe on indiiviual freedoms and hinder the free exercise of religion as in the 231 years previously.
The 2002 flag had pointed stars for the first time
This is such a great story and photos it's worth running each year.
Neighbor, Henrietta Hastie, sent over a very nice "send-on" that gives a unique story about how someone is honoring the United States of America and the flag. It seems that the Bodger Seed Company (not Badger) of Lompac, California near Costa Mesa, has honored this country in an incredible way on several occasions. I did a little research on the Internet and came up with some interesting information and some great pictures which I've posted, but there are many more if you visit the link for Bodger Seeds below.
Lompac is the flower raising center for Southern California and as of 2002 there were still nine miles.... yes, nine miles of open fields of flowers from the Town of Lompac all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
In 1942, Bodger Seed "raised" the first Floral Flag in honor of our fighting men and women and in memory of Pearl Harbor and those who gave their lives then and after. The first Floral Flag was painted.... er, planted on December 14, 1941, a week after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was in bloom during the early summer of 1942. It not only was a memorial to that fateful day but honored all the days after as men and women put their lives on the line and fought an honorable war against tyranny.
As a patriotic gesture after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, Bodger Seeds has again planted a Floral Flag in Lompoc, California. It was 50 years since they planted such a flag.
There have been four Floral Flags planted by Bodger Seeds in Lompoc during the last century:1942, 1943, 1945, 1952. All of the flags were comprised of Red, White and Blue Larkspur flowers. Some of the flags were set off in a background of white Larkspur. The 1943 flag was planted as a 'wavy' flag that turned out as a failure.
The first flag, shown on the right was the first one in 1942 and was 455 feet long and 260 feet high, equaling 2.75 acres. It was planted in a 9 acre field of White Larkspur. The Stars were 10' x 10' and the Stripes were 22 feet wide. It was estimated to contain 200,000 Larkspur plants.
Then in 1952, as shown on the right in the second photo, the Floral Flag was planted with Stripes of varying widths so that the flag would retain proper perspective from the top of Lookout Point, approximately 1/4 mile to the south. This Flag was 7 acres square: 550 feet long and 540 feet wide. The Stripes were 33 feet wide on the south end of the flag and became progressively wider to a maximum of 53 feet wide on the north end of the flag.
By 2002 Bodger Seed knew exactly how to do it and the Floral Flag commerating the tragic "9/11" experience was 740 feet wide and 390 feet high and maintained the proper Flag dimensions. This Flag is 6.65 acres and is the first Floral Flag to be planted with 5 pointed Stars comprised of White Larkspur. Each Star is 24 feet in diameter; Each Stripe is 30 feet wide. This Flag is estimated to contain more than 400,000 Larkspur plants with 4-5 flower stems each for a total of more than 2 million flowers.
Don't know what they are doing this year but you Southern Californians might want to drive by V Street south of Ocean Avenue in Lompoc, California see what's going on and send us a photo.
I've linked Bodger Seed's website below. It has many pages you would enjoy if you would just tell yourself that you really have enough time to visit and do everything else you seem to think you must do.
GOD BLESS AMERICA! Oh, how it needs that blessing. But how can God bless without national repentence?"
WHY YOU CAN ALMOST HEAR THEM "HOMEGROWN TOMATOES" GROWING.
We picked our first tomato at Eastt Nancy Creek so it's time for our annual tribute to a summer delicacy - the homegrown tomato and the subsequent responsibility to construct a sandwich involving it.!
We have some great music about tomatoes that you might want to play as you read this article. Scroll to the end of this article and Click the song you want and then minimize the RealAudio player and delete the blank page so you can return to this page.
I've always loved a fresh, warm tomato right off the vine as well as the great sandwiches in the summer, and in the winter, Campbell's Tomato soup with a pat of butter floating in it. Southern philosopher and radio humorist, Ludlow Porch, is the one who introduced me to the song, "Homegrown Tamaters." This song, written by Guy Clarke, reviews all of the wonderful things about growing your own tomatoes and experiencing their delicious sensual flavor and texture in so many different ways. I just don't understand why so many people, dogs, cats, and gekos don't like the taste, texture or smell of 'maters.
The two "click and listen" stations at the bottom of this article will take you to the music. If you don't have feel you must have a tomato sandwich for lunch before too long, we've not been successful communicating an enticement for this delicacy. As you listen to these wonderful renditions, you'll discover why "Home Grown Tamaters" became the national anthem for a few "way out," kooky, backyard gardeners who enjoy life and laugh at themselves.
Of course, we all know that the proper pronunciation for the bright red fruit is “tamaters”, and this is how it's used in conversation among fellow “love apple” growers. And this time of the year the conversation is hot and heavy as to who is pickin’ the best tastin’ “tamaters” and what variety has done the best this year?
The current back garden “tamater” crop in many back yards, down here in the South, is sitting there sucking up the heat already so juicy and so flavorful! We got ours in late tis year so we'll have to wait awhile. Remember back during the winter when we spent most of our food time wishing for a warm day temperature, homegrown “tamater?” The rest of the year we have to put up with those hard orbs the supermarket labels as “tomato” from somewhere other than a genuine garden, but a real “mater” with heavenly flavor has to be grown in a yard.
There is a difference between a tomato and a “tamater.” A “tomato” is a fruit grown hundreds of miles away and has the consistency of a wet baseball. It is usually served in restaurants, ballparks, and any place you eat other than home. It doesn’t have much of a taste, but serves the purpose until “tamater” season comes around -- like right now.
A “tamater,” on the other hand, is a bright red, juicy fruit that has had our love and care for several months. That love and care has involved our nurturing them to maturity.
I really think that what gives a home grown tamater its unique flavor and texture and juiciness is the love and care from its grower. That love and care has involved nurturing those tiny seeds in our window sills or choosing the "choice" plants at the nursery, to planting the plant in the garden, putting aluminum foil around the stem to keep cutworms away, wrapping that plant with quilts during cold snaps, feeding the plant with only the best fertilizers, watching it grow daily, suckering it, and dusting it for bugs. The major task is just watching all of them grow and talking to them as you tie up the vines and desucker the stalks. Finally the reward -- picking a ripe, warm, juicy “tamater.”
My summer wouldn’t be complete without several fresh “tamater” sandwiches. There are many ways to make one, but there is only one true country way to serve up your garden's "love apple" delight.
Home grown “tamaters” are what summer is all about. There is nothing any better than a fresh “tamater” straight from your garden -- still hot in your hand. They're great, straight from the vine, with a little salt -- I usually take a small bite and then salt the moist flesh. That way the salt sticks. You can’t beat “tamaters” and cottage cheese, but by far mankind's favorite use of a RAW "tamater" straight from the garden is making a “tamater” sandwich. Of course, it MUST be on pure, adulterated, and modified by nutritional degrading white bread. Or as they say down South, "Light bread."
Now here's exactly like you do it. You place two slices of fresh lite bread on a plate. Next, take a kitchen knife and spread a good amount of mayonnaise on both slices of bread. Make sure the knife hits the sides of the mayonnaise jar so a click can be heard sounding from the jar. This doesn’t help the taste of the sandwich, but it reminds you to buy more mayonnaise the next time you are at the store. It looks like a good “tamater” season this year and we wouldn’t want to run low on mayonnaise.
Next, slice your home grown “tamater,” avoiding the temptation to swipe a slice for now, into several thick slices. You should not be able to read a newspaper through any of the slices. This helps hold in the juice, and besides, if you wanted thin slices you could have gotten a “tomato” at a restaurant in town.
Add pepper and salt as desired. Place the slices on the light (That's what white bread is called by real Southerners) bread and reverently place the pieces of bread together. Ladies may want to cut the sandwich into a triangle, but real “Southern mater eaters” like their sandwiches whole so you don't lose any juice. It's best to eat your tamater sandwich over the sink so the juice can run over your wrist, down your arm to your elbow and then drip into the sink. Savor each bite of your sandwich with closed eyes, just like a prayer, and enjoy what summer is all about.
Happy “tamater” growing and I hope ALL of your “tamater” sandwiches drip down your arm into the sink.
In the meantime listen to the music again by clicking the line at the end of the article, and read these words by Guy Clarke.
HOMEGROWN TAMATERS
REFRAIN:
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What'd life be without home grown tomatoes
There's only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes.
FIRST VERSE:
There's nothin' in the world that I like better'n
Bacon, lettuce and home grown tomatoes
Up in the morning and out in the garden
Pick you a ripe one, don't get a hard 'un
Plant 'em in the springtime, eat 'em in the summer
All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin and the diggin
Every time I go out and pick me a big'un.
SECOND VERSE:
You can go out and eat'em that's for sure
But there's nothin a home grown tomato won't cure
You can put em in a salad, put em in a stew
You can make your own, very own tomato juice
You can eat em with eggs, you can eat em with gravy
You can eat em with beans, pinto or navy
Put em on the side, put em on the middle
Home grown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle.
THIRD VERSE:
If I could change this life I lead
You could call me Johnny Tomato Seed
I know what this country needs
It's home grown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cold dark cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
Where I could be pushin up those home grown tomatoes.
AND EVERYONE JOINS IN:
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What'd life be without home grown tomatoes
There's only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes.
John Adams (1735-1826) was the 2nd President of the United States of America and the first President to live in the White House. He had served for eight years as Vice-President with President George Washington. He was a graduate of Harvard, a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
In his diary entry dated February 22, 1756 John Adams wrote: Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their own law book, and every member should regulate his or her conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience to: temperance, frugality, industry; and justice, kindness, and charity towards fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be?
On March 6, 1799, President Adams called for a National Day of Prayer.
As not truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor any more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep sense and a due acknowledgement of the growing providence of a Supreme Being and of the accountableness of men and women to Him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributor of rewards and punishment are conducive equally to the happiness of individuals and to the well-being of communities....
I have thought it proper to recommend that Thursday, the twenty-fifth of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; and that the citizens on that day abstain, as far as it may be, from their secular occupation, and devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private.
And that the citizens call to mind numerous offenses against the most high God, confess them before Him with the sincerest Penitence, implore his pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruiness to mankind;
... that He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people (Proverbs 14:34)
Amazing, isn't it? He not only declared the National Day of Prayer but, like a skilled religious leader, told us exactly what it might be good for us to do on that special day. John Adams became the first President to move into the White house and that was on November 2, 1800. In writing a letter to his wife he composed a beautiful prayer that was later engraved into the mantel in the state dining room where it can be seen today.
I pray Heaven to bestow THE BEST OF ALL BLESSINGS ON THIS HOUSE and All that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof.
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We're including this new byline in Ramblin's that reflects the view that a personal faith in God and a theistic world-view was very much a part of the foundation of the establishment and growth of our Nation, America. This reality and fact of an extreme belief in God was a normal part of our culture here in American and influenced our daily life and the function of our government and law.
I am using as a resource, William Federer's great volume, America's God and Country,published by Amerisearch. Magnificent book with thousands of significant quotations regarding the Christian foundation of our nation and culture.
The rise of Secular Humanism in the past 50 plus years and its current control of education, the arts, political processes, all media, and the law gives the impression that a faith in God and the expression of that faith in daily life has no important place in our culture. History has been rewritten in order to try to blank out just how spiritual and religiously oriented the formation and development of this nation was. William Federer's book clearly shows just how intensely this nation was "Under God."
WHAT REALLY HAPPENS IN THE BACKYARD BARBEQUE PROCESS!
This Memorial Day weeked is the first main "bargeque evernt". of the summer. Therefore, it is important to refresh our memories on the etiquette of this sublime outdoor cooking activity, as it's the only type of cooking a 'real' man will do. This is probably because there is an element of danger involved in the barbeque process. Thanks to Pat and Trish Kelly for this one.
When a man volunteers to do the BBQ the following chain of events are put into motion. Here's the routine...
(1) The woman buys the food.
(2) The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes the dessert.
(3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along
with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the man who is
lounging beside the grill - beer in hand.
Here comes the important part:
(4) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.
More routine....
(5) The woman goes inside to organize the plates and cutlery.
(6) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is burning. He
thanks her and asks if she will bring another beer while he deals with
the situation.
Then another Important part:
(7) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.
More routine....
(8) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins, sauces, and brings them to the table.
(9) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.
And the most important part of the entire processl:
(10) Everyone PRAISES the MAN and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.
(11) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed "her night off." And, upon
seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there's just no pleasing
some women.... .
We're always honored by visitors. We do our best to provide new information on this "Ramblin" page ... and leave some of the stuff we think is extra good a little longer than the others. Please visit again.
We'd enjoy hearing from you. Drop us a note. We'd enjoy knowing you're visitin.' To do so, click the "Drop Us A Note" link right below.
We extend to you an old Southern salutation you don't hear much any more down here.... "Ya'll come back now, ya'hear?"
Norman Plunkett
God is good -- ALWAYS!
And especially as He floods you with all the grace you need no matter what the situation. As you trust Him, God's grace is always just enough and always on time.
