Brag came by the other evening to feed the dogs just as I was finishing up using the grill. He remarked that I had been doing a lot of grilling lately. And I have. Over the last few weeks, a varied mix of fish, fowl and mammals have found their way onto my charcoal grill. Only reptiles and amphibians are missing from the list. A temporary oversight, I’m sure.

I know some of you people say you’re going to fire up the grill when you actually mean you’re going out, turning on the gas and pushing the electronic ignition button Then you set around waiting for the fake rocks to heat up while your fake meat marinates in fake smoke.

Soy burgers, anyone?
I’m talking about a real grilling.
A charcoal grill.
You ain’t really bbq’ing till you have to grill in the yard.
Way out in the yard. Safely away from the house with a hose pipe at the ready.

There are many ways to start the coals from electric heating irons, to cones, to accelerates like lighter fluid. The best is where the charcoal is started in one of those cones with a piece of newspaper under it, thus freeing ones delicate palate from the taste of petroleum products cooked into your meal. Hold the petroleum distillate marinate, please!

Now, some of you say, I’m grilling this weekend and you really mean you’re going to turn on a switch and push the electronic ignition button .
Not that I got anything against gas grills, but it does seem to me that if your going to use gas, just stay in your kitchen. I mean, for God’s sake, some of these things have everything on them but a microwave. And when they figure out how to make one run on propane they’ll hang one of those on the side. One model utilizes a laser to heat the ceramic fake coals to 5000* Fahrenheit instantly, so that not only can you cook a burger in 2 second but you can do a whole smoked turkey in 10 minutes, fifteen if it's still frozen.

Now like I said, I don’t have anything really against gas grills except your not really grilling, just pretending. But anyway Cuz and Gary sell a boat load of them down at their store “The Grill Outlet”. It’s located in what used to be Bibb city, one of the last mill towns, stuck right in the middle of Columbus, Georgia on the banks of the Chattahoochee. When the mill finally closed the town didn’t have enough of a tax base to hang on and Columbus got their hands on it.

Cuz and Gary sell most anything related to fake fire, from complete fake fireplaces, fake grills, down to fake smoke, though they use words like Faux and simulated and manufactured and chemically induced. Thing about it is that it’s really good fake stuff.

JD, who was Cuz and my mutual cousin, would use gasoline in a pinch during his teen years. JD had a full thick beard that he was quite rightly proud of since the rest of us were growing beards that looked pretty much like we had the mange. We were cat fishing on Lake Eufaula using a campsite on the shore as our base of operations. The drinking age in Alabama had just been lowered, not that that would have mattered much and JD was finishing off a six pack while he sloppily filled the lanterns and camp stove with white gas, splashing generous amounts on his hands. The mosquitoes were absolutely ferocious that year and hung around our heads in floating clouds, taking their place on exposed bits of flesh as one that was sated or disturbed lumbered into the air. JD periodically brushed his beard in an attempt to get the struggling little blood suckers out.

Being the self appointed camp cook, JD regarded the building of the coals as a art form that only he, of our group, had mastered.. Finishing filling the stove and lanterns, he went over to the cooking pit and stacked some charcoal in a pyramid shape before splashing some gas on them to get them started. Standing off to one side he pulled out an almost empty book of matches. He pulled one off and struck it on the cover before tossing it toward the pit. He missed. Reaching down, trying to save one of the precious few matches we had, the gas vapors flashed, igniting JD’s gas tinged beard. JD, trailing sparks from the flaming hair, made a mad sprint for the river. He would have made it to if he hadn’t kissed a tree full frontal. On the plus side, it did put the fire out.

An oldie but a goodie