It’s the Pitts: A Lesser Man

As I look back on my nearly 73 years of life, I have two big regrets – one is I never served my country in the military, and the second is I never learned how to barbecue. 

For a person who has made his living in 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 a.m. when my brand-new electric blanket caught fire and my bed became a raging inferno with me in it. It was bad enough 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, he just so happened to be the very same furniture store owner. Yes, my grandpa.

One 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 allowing men to revert back to their caveman 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 grownups’ word for it because kids got hamburgers at our house as we couldn’t squander hard-earned cash on kids. 

I was 21 years old and out of college before I ever tasted the most delectable of all food stuffs – filet mignon.

When my mom got home from the store, my father would announce 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, since he’d be cooking and doing all of the heavy lifting that evening, he was going to take a nap while my mom baked pies, prepared all of the fixings, set the table, cleaned the grill, laid the kindling and wadded up newspaper for the fire. 

Then my dad would give it a big squirt of starter fluid and 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.

At just the right moment – the make-or-break moment of any barbecue – my father would take the steaks off of 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 of the work my dad had done so she could enjoy a night off.