Wow! i have a tradition.

Actually, i have a bunch of traditions, some of them are closer to superstition, some are just to keep some folks happy, and a few, like this one, are mine, all mine.

The more i think about it, the more i like this tradition. It’s sort of in line with JB Leftwich, the Coach’s tradition. Every year about this time but just a tad later, Coach would write one of his weekly columns for The Lebanon Democrat about a fruit cake recipe. i think it was a fruit cake, and i’m pretty sure it was his mother’s, but i am too lazy to look it up this morning. But i like the idea of following in Coach’s footsteps. It’s hard to go wrong that way.

The below is from last year’s post. i should add i still cling to Mr. Dickel’s version of sour mash even though the Prichard brand with a distillery up in Kelso, Tennessee, must have some family connection. Both Jo Doris and Estelle carried the maiden name of Prichard, and it’s without the “t,” which makes them fairly unique. Someday, someday, i will find the Prichard family connection among the Leftwich’s, the Jewell’s, and  the distillery.

This, i think, is my new tradition.

i wrote this recipe (sic) in 1990. i now am the Turkey Smoking Go-To at the Jewell household whenever we have Thanksgiving here with more than two people (If it’s just Maureen and i we find a very nice restaurant usually without a turkey dinner).

i have published this a couple of times in The Democrat and posted it here several times. There is a more serious version with more exact directions, but i forget where it is every year and wing it. i was going to blow off putting it out in the newspaper or on the web this year, when Bill Goodner described how he smoked his turkey, i remembered turkey smoking being a JB Leftwich family Thanksgiving or Christmas tradition for Jim and Jack to smoke a turkey while tending to it with a Prichard whiskey in  hand (it used to be George Dickel, and i still stick to the Tullahoma brand). My brother-in-law Daniel Boggs and my nephew Bill Boase, pride themselves on technically correct smoking.

Well, i ain’t technical. i use an old Weber smoker, not as good as my smaller original like Jimmy Lynch used back when, but my smaller one rusted out about twenty years ago and you just can’t find them anymore. So now i add charcoal and chips throughout the process.

A couple of months ago, we got a new Komodo dragon grill…just kidding: it’s  a knock off of a “Big Green Egg” smoker Char-Griller dubbed the “King Griller Akorn Kamado Kooker” (“kamado” is the term used for a Japanese smoker, which looks like an egg). Therefore, i could become more technical. But i am a sentimentalist, and getting up in the wee hours of the morning to start the coals, top them with the soaked hickory chips (i tried mesquite chips once, but i’m from Tennessee: hickory chips are the only chips), put the turkey on the grill, pour the marinade from the bucket over the turkey and into the drip/water pan, and then tending to the fire and chips randomly and very carefully throughout the day gives me a sense of fulfillment.

i am learning the awesome powers of my Komodo dragon grill and have found grilling steaks, pork chops, etc. is great, and i plan to to expand to seafood, fish, and Cornish game hens in the near future, but i think i’ll stick to my old smoker for the turkey.

So Bill, i don’t think i can be of much help on electric smokers, but it i thought you might like this recipe. This year, there is no dog. When i put Lena, my last one down, i vowed not to have another dog until i was sure it would outlive me and put me down rather than vice versa. i still want to have a dog again, but not for helping me smoke a turkey.

Dec 10, 1990, 10:36 pm

SAN DIEGO—Holidays, except for the weather, are pretty much the same for me out here in the southwest corner or back in Tennessee. To start, no one will let me smoke the turkey.

When I was growing up in Lebanon, and every time I return there for a holiday, my mother cooks the turkey. When there are only a few of us there, she makes a chicken taste like a turkey. She roasts the turkey, or the chicken, in the oven, and it comes complete with dressing and gravy. When we have a holiday out here, my wife cooks the turkey the same way my mother cooks the turkey. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I volunteer to cook the turkey. Every year, whether in Tennessee or out here in the Southwest corner, whoever is in charge of turkeys says no. They profess to love the turkey the way I fix it, but they say another time would be better. They say they want a traditional turkey.

I picked up turkey cooking while I was spending some considerable time about two-thirds of the way between here in the southwest corner and Tennessee. The Colonel, grandfather of my oldest daughter, lived up in Paris, Texas, and he fed me my first smoked turkey. I loved it. Since then, I have modified his recipe somewhat and do cook one fine smoked turkey. Since I can’t have it out here or in Tennessee, I thought someone with fewer traditionalists in their immediate family might like to have the recipe to try for the holidays.

Smoking a Turkey

INGREDIENTS:

1. This is fairly important to the success of the whole affair. Pick a good one. The critical part is to make sure it will fit in the smoker
2. 1 container large enough to hold the turkey and cover it with the magic elixir. I’ve been known to use a plastic bucket, but sometimes the dog gets upset as we normally use it for his water dish. This is okay as long as we stay out of biting reach of the dog for two or three days.
3. 1 smoker, probably any kind that claims to be a smoker and any number of possible jury rigs would work; however, if I were using a “Weber” or like vessel, I would make sure that there was extra water in the smoker).
4. 1 bottle of beer. Beer in longnecks is preferable but one should not become too concerned about the type of beer as “Lone Star” is a bit too elegant for this type of cooking. Besides, we wouldn’t want to waste a beer worth drinking on some dumb turkey. If one is desperate and doesn’t mind subjecting oneself to abject humiliation, it is permissible to stoop to using a can of beer.
5. 1\2 cup of Madeira. Again, I wouldn’t be overly concerned about the quality of the wine, and in truth, any red wine is probably okay. However, I would stay away from “Night Train” wine as it has been known to eat through barbecue grills, smokers, and anything made of material weaker than that used in hulls of nuclear submarines.
6. Angostura bitters
7. Worcestershire sauce
8. Chili powder
9. Oregano
10. Sage
11. Honey
12. Molasses
13. Undoubtedly, there are numerous items that I have forgotten to list here, but that’s okay as it really depends on what your individual taste is — I don’t suggest substituting low fat milk for the beer, but most everything else is probably okay — and if it’s really important, I’ll realize I left it out when I get to the narrative of how to use all this stuff and include the forgotten ingredient there.

PREPARATION:

Thaw the turkey. Take all those weird things that they put in those plastic packages inside the turkey and cook them in a skillet without the plastic packages, turning them frequently. Then feed what you just cooked to the dog. It might placate him enough to keep him from biting you for taking away his water bucket. If there are traditionalists in the bunch, give the stuff to them rather than the dog and let them make gravy.

Put the turkey in large container. Pour beer and Madeira over turkey. If you have not allowed about 24 hours for the turkey to thaw or about 8-12 hours for marinating the turkey, call your invited guests and advise them that the celebration will be about two days later than indicated on the original invitation.

Sprinkle other ingredients over the turkey. Be plentiful. It’s almost impossible to get too much.

Crunch the garlic cloves I didn’t mention in the ingredients and add to the container. I normally use about four normal sized cloves for a normal sized turkey. Also add the previously omitted bay leaves, about 6-8 for that same normal sized bird.

Add enough water to cover the turkey although it probably wouldn’t be a disaster if a leg partially stuck out. Then put the container in a safe place, unless of course, you want the dog to be rapturously happy and not bite you until long after his teeth have fallen out.

Allow to sit undisturbed for 6-10 hours (longer is better and ten hours is not necessarily the upper limit but exceeding ten hours may have some impact on when you either eat or get tired of the turkey taking up all that safe space).

Put the turkey on smoker grill above water pan after lighting the charcoal (one or two coals burning well is the best condition for the charcoal) and placing soaked hickory chips, which I also forgot to mention, earlier on the charcoal — again, be plentiful — after soaking the chips for at least 30 minutes. Pour remaining magic elixir over the turkey into the water pan. Add as much water to the water pan as possible without overflowing and putting out the fire below. Cover. Do not touch. Do not look. Do not peek…unless it doesn’t start to smoke in about thirty minutes. Then peek. If it’s smoking, leave alone for at least six hours for a large normal sized turkey. It is almost impossible to overcook if you have added enough water at the outset. You should check and add water or charcoal throughout the process. I have found that mesquite charcoal is the best, as it burns hotter. Regular charcoal will do fine but will require more checking.

The secret to the whole process is to cook extremely slow, as slow as possible and still start the fire.

Serve turkey, preferably without the garlic cloves or bay leaves. Now is the time for “Night Train” wine or the good beer. Serve “Night Train” very cold as indicated on the label.

The turkey’s also good cold.

Shoot the dog.

i had a good day today. With the help of daughter, i touched my toe in the water of the cyber world, learning how to survive there because for goodness sake one cannot live by bread alone: he must be able to navigate the “cloud” and new fangled no-chord technology. We aren’t talking about Philco radios or RCA Victrolas any more.

i wrote quite a bit. i did some home projects. i created a post or two i liked. i did some work outside and in my garage. i like to tinker and i tinkered away. Good day.

Then i tired from those enjoyments and decided to end the day sorting and throwing away office stuff and cleaning up my documents. There i found the below file i had almost finished but put aside.

i think it captures my mood about our country today:

Thomas, John, James, Abraham, and Mose

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson penned the draft for the “Declaration of Independence.” His words: 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The idea had far deeper meaning than Jefferson and the fifty-five other British colony representatives who signed the document could have imagined. The idea is no less powerful for their lack of understanding the depth and breadth the meaning of those words would come to hold for everyone, and i mean everyone, who would become, one way or another, citizens of this country, and to the world at large.

*     *     *

James Madison is credited for being the major writer of our Constitution, from which our country formed the best governing system, which remains so today. It begins:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Madison likely had no idea how impactful his words were to become to the country, but his lack of knowledge of the future does not detract from the power of his concept.

*     *      *

Abraham Lincoln spoke to a large crowd it the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield to honor the fallen Union troops. It is known as “The Gettysburg Address:”

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

As our forefathers before him, Abraham Lincoln did not fully grasp the breadth and depth these words have come to mean to us. Abraham Lincoln was not ready to accept racial equality. Where he lived when he lived was not ready to accept races as equal. That was true of all races. The dominant powerful races ruled, but had the “Native Americans,” the Negroes, and all of the other races had the technical superiority and power of the Caucasians, they too would have considered themselves superior, and quite likely did. Yet Lincoln’s words, especially the last part of the last sentence from that address: “…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” captured the essence of equality we not only continue to strive for, but believe in all of our hearts, at least those who try to be pure of heart.

These forefathers’ worlds were different than ours today. But their ideas captured what we should be still attempting to achieve in the true, complete sense of the words they wrote and spoke even though it was not a complete, perfect thought in their minds. It was their ideas of freedom and equality that has made this country great.

It seems to be we have forgotten their ideas of freedom and equality for all humans.

Mose Allison recognized this in his song “Mercy:” 

Everybody crying mercy when they don’t know the meaning of the word…
Everybody crying justice, just as long as they get theirs first…
Everbody crying peace on earth just as soon as we win this war… 

i am sad.

In 1970, i had a cup of coffee seventeen times in Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, or Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam; was caught in the crossfire of .50 cal rifles between mistakened U.S. forces once, friendly fire i think it’s called; thought i was shot at five other times; and at night from my ship’s weather decks, watched tracers from firefights several miles away.

About 0200 in Qui Nhon, a cargo ship moored aft of the USNS Geiger (T-AP 197) on the DeLong pier had a zapper charge blow through her cargo hold. i watched from my stateroom porthole as she took on a list, held upright by her mooring lines with the huge tire fenders between her and the pier being blown up in the air and bouncing down the pier while the crew from several Asian countries running down the pier avoiding the bouncing tires and some climbing our accommodation ladder to inquire about joining our Merchant Marine crew.

At anchor in  Nha Trang Bay after Army intelligence informed us we were a target for zappers in the area, i spent the night with Doc Miles Humphrey, standing by the safety lines on the 03 level, with my .45 cal pistol, the only one of five guns i knew were on the ship, feeling pretty hopeless, watching for any signs of underwater swimmers. The zappers must have been scared away.

In 1984-85 with USS Yosemite anchored off of Masirah, Oman, we were informed by Navy intelligence Iranian gunboats might attack us. We had ad hoc .50 cal rifle teams posted around the perimeter of the main deck and 02 levels for a week or so. Checking out these teams with almost no weapons training, the helpless feeling i had in Nha Trang Bay returned.

In my 15 years at sea, i experienced about ten near collisions and a half dozen or so storms strong enough to frighten the most experienced mariners. i don’t remember ever being scared in the Navy. I felt helpless those two times, i was concerned, especially when other ships were putting my ship and the crew in danger by not following the rules of the road. i have been frightened a number of times in my non-Navy life.

But then, the dangers i brushed near were nothing. Nothing. i have friends, close friends who died. i have friends who were horribly injured and brutally tortured — none of them talk about it, or regret it. Death, pain, long term disability are part of the agreement. They are proud of their service.

i’m proud of my service too, but my service was not so much service as a means to financial security and more so going to sea on ships. Still i am proud of my service.

i think of my father’s service and the service of his generation. It is mind boggling to me: he and all of the other men in that generation who dropped the only lives they had ever known to fight a war in places they had never dreamed of much less been to.  Jimmy Jewell was a youthful automobile mechanic in small country town with his first child on the way. He decided to enlist before being called by the draft. He felt it was his best choice and would allow him to serve using his expertise, fixing things, like automobiles. With a pregnant wife and a sense of duty conflicting in his decision making,  he made his decision based on the inevitable service he knew would come to pass. He took with him a pocket-size faux leather album he kept in his pocket the entire time he was gone containing precious photos like the one here of his wife and him.

i try to imagine how he felt as he went to Parris Island, South Carolina for boot camp, and Davisville, Rhode Island for Seabee training, and Gulfport, Mississippi to wait for his ship, places in the states he had never been. Then, what was on his mind when, with 1 five-month old son and his wife on his mind, boarding that liberty ship, traversing the Panama Canal, picking up more 75th Battalion Seabees in San Francisco, crossing the Pacific, and spending almost two years, in the middle of a war like no wars in its expanse.

I try to imagine him watching kamikaze planes from his motor pool crashing before they reached him. i have been to several of the places in the South Pacific where he had been thirty or forty years earlier. i understand why many of his photos show him shirtless in the intense heat and humidity on those jungle islands.

The stories he told me about those times in the war at Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu, New Caledonia; Bougainville, New Guinea; an LST ride to Luzon, Philippines. He showed me photos as he told me the stories and gave me a box with those photos to keep. i fervently wish we had taken time for him to tell me more stories and also wish i had recorded those stories in order to get them right in the retelling.

But there was one photo that tells it all for me. Today, Veteran’s Day, is not just to honor those who died in service. The ensign (U.S. flag to you non-Navy folks) is flown two-blocked, not at half mast for it is a day to be proud of our service, not sad. Still there are those who didn’t come back from their service. They remain in places their sons and daughters won’t ever visit. One of those who didn’t come back could have been my father. Heck, now that i think about it, i might not have come back from some of my service: just haven’t thought of it in that way before.

i am proud of all of my fellow veterans for their service. But there is a quiet awe i feel when i look at the photo my father gave to me:

Amy Beth Hale posted on Facebook this morning about getting a new microwave oven. She had put off doing so for about a year and a half after the old one went out, and did so mostly because the light over the stove died with the old microwave.

It brought back a memory of a microwave that wasn’t so benign in its passing. It is a second hand story, so i will attempt to keep it anonymous for i cannot vouch for the veracity. But it’s a good story.

Out west in a hilly region of the countryside, there is a wonderful golf course: tough, up and down among many pines with narrow fairways and small greens, and a small lake. Homes are built around the beautiful private course and many of the residents are club members.

Several of these members played a couple of rounds each week with each other with small wagers. One such wager was at the fourteenth tee at the back of the lake. The group had a standing bet they would all pay a hundred bucks if someone could hit a ball off the tee about sixty degrees right of the fairway line and reach the other side of the lake, about 290 yards away. Each time, they reached the fourteenth tee, they would take turns before their tee shots for the match to try and hit the other side of the lake.

One member whose home was behind the fourteenth tee was often close but still short of his goal. He knew the harder the golf ball, the further it would go. So he devised his plan of winning the standing bet. As they walked from the thirteenth green to the next tee box, he said he had to run inside his house and get something out of the kitchen. When he got inside, he placed his golf ball in his kitchen microwave and turned it on high, figuring microwaving it for a minute or so would make the ball hard enough to go longer and get his shot to other side of the lake.

He turned on the microwave.

The other golfers heard the blast.

The microwave exploded and ruined a good portion of the kitchen.

The golfer/house owner never found the golf ball. His future tee shots never reached the other side of the lake.

i’m not sure why, but i laugh every time i think of that story.

Thanks, Amy Beth.

Last Thursday evening, i attended an event, which produced déja vu for me but in spades. i began this post later that Thursday evening and have been trying to get my head wrapped around it since then.

The event was not as well attended as it should have been. But on the other hand, the few who attended experienced an impactful evening made more so because of the intimacy of just a few.

Sixteen folks were there.

Andrew Maraniss was the speaker. He told of a difficult time in our history and how one man faced it and not only endured but succeeded with very little support. In doing so, this man opened the door to a new and better culture.

The book is Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South.  i read the book shortly after it was published in 2014. It told of how Wallace became the first black athlete to play in the Southeastern Conference in 1967. He played for Vanderbilt. The story is almost overwhelming from many angles. Wallace endured severe racial prejudice, threats, and even violence. Those with best intentions did not provide him the support he needed and he had to grit his teeth and make it on his own.

Make it he did. And finally Vanderbilt made amends for the lack of support and Perry took his rightful place in the history books for being a pioneer who led the change for sports in the South and his rightful place of honor at Vanderbilt. Andrew’s two books, Strong Inside (the adult edition mentioned above) and Strong Inside: The True Story of How Perry Wallace Broke College Basketball’s Color Line (young readers edition),  provide a vivid portrayal much better than anything i could offer here.

But the Vanderbilt Alumni meeting was an experience.

i was there…i mean i was at the meeting and i was in Nashville when the Perry Wallace story  unfolded.

The meeting was unique. Although small in number, the attendees included two young boys, recent graduates, and graduates who attended during Perry’s time there. There were guests, my wife, daughter, and two neighbors included.

The reaction to Andrew describing the events in the book brought a palpable, emotional response. Andrew’s style is informal, casual and fit this event perfectly. Those who had not heard the story believed but it was hard for them to imagine it actually happened. Those who had heard the story and read the book, especially me, were taken back again.

The question and answer period was just about perfect. All of the questions and comments were pertinent and on point. Andrew’s discussion for each question left everyone feeling their questions were answered and their time well spent.

And i was taken back again. i was gone by the time Perry had matriculated. But i was around. i saw him play for Pearl High School, the first time a black school had played a primarily white school (Father Ryan, the winning opponent had several black students and athletes). i saw him standing just out of the foul circle, take one step, catch a teammate’s foul shot, which had hit the back of the rim and bounce up and back to the court, Perry catching it with his right hand at the top of the arc and slamming it back through the net. i heard of his feat at Vanderbilt practice picking quarters off the top of the backboard.

Although i was no longer a student at Vanderbilt, working my way through Middle Tennessee State, i spent a great deal of time in Nashville and was thrilled Wallace and Vanderbilt had broken the color barrier and were succeeding. i had no idea, none whatsoever what Perry was going through.

Perhaps i was just too naive. Looking back on my life my naiveté has been one of my problems throughout my life, even now. i have written here about wondering why folks with darker skin color were at a lower social level, wondered why i didn’t even seen youn black youth, much less play with them. i loved the blues and recognized blues was the propriety of black folks. i listened into the deep of night most nights during high school. As the youth representative for a church committee, i even made a stand for integration.

In college through the good graces of Kent Russ, i met Ralph Boston and remain impressed until this day. i also saw Bob Hayes tie the 100-yard world record. And Cy Fraser and i were frequent visitors to the New Club Baron, a black night club featuring blues and rhythm and blues where we would be two white young men in the middle of a packed house of folks with darker skin, and we would stay into the wee hours.

i just didn’t get it. The protests and the sit-ins had reached a peak. i should have known. i tell myself i should have done more than one measly pronouncement at a church meeting. But i was working two jobs, commuting daily to MTSU, playing softball in a church league, and finding ways to get to my fraternity on the Vandy campus as often as possible. i was interested in getting my degree, going out with women, having fun, and moving on, on and out. That was it. Even with all of the news and the hubbub around the protests, i just didn’t know (as the late Bob Warren, a Commodore teammate of Perry’s said to him years later: “I just didn’t know”).

These kind of thoughts frequently play in my mind. In quiet moments, i try to remember how i missed it, how i didn’t know. i am glad Perry Wallace, “the Jackie Robinson of SEC sports,” did what he did. We needed someone to step forward. i’m proud of Vanderbilt for at least initiating the possibility and even though it was bumbling, giving Perry the avenue to make it happen.

Last Thursday, i went through all of those thoughts one more time: déja vu. As usual, i had no more answers. But i was moved by Andrew Maraniss and was gratified at the response of his audience.

A final note: We have progressed. Athletics is one avenue that opened doors for blacks (i’m using this term for folks of darker skin color than me because someone much more up to date than i told me that was the current preferred politically correct term: i hope i am not offending anyone). Our schools are, at least on paper, integrated. We have made strides through the efforts of many brave people willing to step forward for the first step. i believe both of my daughters and my grandson are color blind. Yet when i look around, i see progress but a long, long way to go before we are truly integrated.

As to how we do that, i feel much like i felt when i watched Vietnamese families escaping a terror, willing to risk the very lives of the families they loved so much by jumping on boats with no idea those boats would even float and heading to the sea with only vague promises and hopes, leaving their homes, their country by the thousands, coming over that horizon south of Vung Tau every day for more than a week. i said to myself then and i say to myself now, “i don’t know what we can do, i don’t know how we got to this point, but we should have done more to prevent this from happening.”

The question now is not what we could have done for Perry then, but what can we do for Perry now?