Porkin' Ain't Easy Competition Barbeque Team

---[There are pictures below my ramblings]---

Ah, to feed a Marine . . . or any other member of the branch of our military for that matter.  In my heart, the military holds a special place . . . first off, I have never served in the active military (my dad did in WWII in the US Navy AK-107 USS Hyperion); I wanted to, but in 1982, there was no need for a 6’5” fighter pilot, so I opted for working on tugboats and being a U.S. Merchant Marine Officer as my USCG Master of Towing Vessels license defines me as; not active military however, by any stretch of the definition.  So why do I have this yearn to do something for our fighting men and women . . ?  The answer is simple; how could I not want to do something for them.

After an EF-5 tornado hit the town of Joplin, MO, I couldn’t help but be drawn into the pictures of destruction, the plight of it’s people, and had a heart-felt need to contribute.  This was the first disaster of this scale that I had ever known a lot of people that were affected by the storm; St. John’s Regional Health Center of Joplin was one of our hospitals in the Mercy Health System that I work for, and I had worked with many of the folks there.  As I watched news segment after news segment, my heart sunk lower with each mention of the severe devastation.

I have been in, and seen the destructive power of what Mother Nature can throw at you during hurricane Alicia in 1983, serving on a tugboat in Galveston Harbor where the eye passed less than 15 miles away, with gusts to 133 knots from our anemometer onboard.  The pictures from Joplin told a much more horrific tale than anything I had experienced with Alicia; there was a lot of damage in Alicia, but not to the apocalyptic level shown in Joplin.

We usually have light-hearted funny stories in the “Blowin’ Smoke” section of the website, but I feel the need to go a tad bit more serious on this one.  We competed in the 2010 Wildwood BBQ Bash, and as in the previous year, we let the contest organizers know that we would be more than happy to feed the National Guard, Police, Fire and volunteer personnel working the event.  We do this out of appreciation for all who help make the competition a success year after year.

At the Bash in 2009, our site was at one of the lowest elevations of the entire grounds, and with the rain we had, it became a mud pit; no matter how much straw and mulch was thrown down, we couldn’t rise above the mud.  But we fed friends, co-workers, neighbors, and laid out a table of food, whereby one friend said “the mud just disappeared . . . we weren’t thinking about the mud, we were thinking about goin’ and getting’ another plate.”

Porkin’ Ain’t Easy was cookin’ in a competition back in 2009 and it was our second year with our new 20 X 20 blue tent.  When you are on grass, you can use stakes to hold the tent frame down so wind won’t flip the tent.  When on concrete or asphalt, you need weight to hold the tent frame down.  For this competition, we were on asphalt and thus we needed weight to hold down the tent.

Oddly enough, I have a water softener and just the previous week to this competition had gone and purchased 9 bags of the salt pellets used in the water system (it is somethin’ not named ‘salt’, but more of a chemical name like Sodium-Glycol-Mono-Benzonate-Mono-Butyl-Ether-Acetate), as they were on sale.  While carrying them out to the Jeep, lookin’ at the stainless steel cart straining under their weight, I had an epiphany . . . I will use these to weigh down our tent legs at next weekend’s competition.

When Mike and I decided to form Porkin' Ain't Easy, we had sat out on the deck, and talked about ideas for the team logo.  They had a very nice logo done with their Curr Dawg Smokers shirt, and during those negotiations of peace treaties, BBQLogos.com kept being brought up, as they had developed that logo for Mike's original team.  I looked them up, and based on their awsome portfolio, decided to go with them for our logo.  Below is how easy Patrick Carlson with BBQLogos.com made the creation of the logo; take note at the dates and times on the emails, as this just took a simple few days; Patrick also turned us on to James with EnterpriseTshirts.com who came up with awsome shirts, hoodies, and aprons for us . . . I was completely blown away by how this all happened:

   "It was raining, as I looked out at the looming grayness; my wife was gone, and she had taken my son away . . .
          as I tipped back my scotch and reflected, on the sleepless night and the hard-worked day . . ."

Wow, that sounded like the beginning to a great blues song . . . It was indeed raining on Saturday at the Main Street BBQ and Bluesfest, and though my iPhone had provided a quasi-favorable Doppler image, it would lightly drizzle for the majority of the day. My wife was, indeed gone, and she did take one of my sons with her, it was merely to take him to one of his baseball games, as they had a tournament that weekend; Ryan, my other son, and a BBQ Team member, was at the contest with me. I had just sat down finally after working the 2:30 AM smoker watch (thus a sleepless night), plus the hard worked morning of final preparation for the barbeque turn-ins; I had poured me a scotch and was sitting in the tent next to our serving table, and upon realizing "Whew!, it is done," I took my first sip.

It was at that point that a well-dressed, classy lookin' gentleman walked up to the serving table and asked, "Do you have any chicken available?"

Every journey begins with a first step, and a journey into competition barbeque is no different.  At least that’s what Mike found out when he embarked upon his first competition.  Mike had attended competitions before, and enjoyed the preparation, smells, and camaraderie of folk’s havin' fun doin' what they love to do . . .

As he wandered around the competition sites, he noticed many teams would display trophies won at prior events as if to tout, or show-off, their championship barbeque skills.  Many teams displayed tables of trophies, making sure the spectator was well aware they were in the presence barbeque greatness.   

Mike was finally ready to compete on his own but secretly he wished he had barbeque trophies to display. As he packed his containers in preparation for the contest he began to feel nervous and uneasy.  Being new to competition barbeque, there was no big professional custom-built smoker, no huge awnings to set up under, and other than the containers of supplies and an ice chest, it was just Mike, his wife, and his backyard brinkman.  How embarrassed he would be with his tiny set-up.

The smoke filled the air, as Mike and Chip began unloading his truck. This competition was in early spring, but ol' man winter was still providin' a 40-degree day. The sun was out, and the wind had died some, and it was forming up to be a down-right nice afternoon. Mike and his wife Wendy had already put up the 4 canvas awnings, providing the group with 20' X 20' of covered barbeque heaven. The "Big Dawg," Mike's smoker, was positioned to the side with a look on it's face of "let's get to smokin' . . ."

As soon as the Ice Chests were unloaded, and chairs were set up, the contest inspector came to inspect our competition meat. The first ice chest that he opened was the one containing all of the crab legs, shrimp, and sausage for the Friday night boil. The surprised inspector looked at us and said, "is this your competition meat?" Chip replied with a serious look on his face, "Well Yeah! This is the West County Seafood Cookoff ain't it." Seeing the flaberghasted look on the inspector's face, Chip continued, grinnin' like a donkey eatin' cactus, "Naw, that is the stuff to eat tonight, which you are more than welcome to come by and have some." Pointing to the other large ice chest, "There is the chest you are looking for." After a successful inspection, Mike said those famous words that are precious to all who partake in barbeque lore . . . "Let's rub our meat."