Life in Cayuga

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. No pressure to find the right gift. No hype. No expectations. Just good food and good times, surrounded by people you love.  What could be better.   For about 20 years my Aunt Helen, Uncle Don’s wife, had all my family on my father’s side to their house for Thanksgiving.  Everyone came. It was like a family reunion after my grandparents died. The whole family looked forward to it.  Cousins came from near and far.  So much food! Everyone brought not just a dish, but several dishes!  And they were all good!  There would be 40-50 of us there ranging in age from newborn to 90!   Sadly, Aunt Helen passed away in April of 2022.  Shortly after that, in September, my mother passed away.  Thanksgiving was coming up and we didn’t know what to do.  The two matriarchs who ran the show were gone.  My sister Laurin and I were still grieving the loss of our mother.  My cousin...

I am the father of identical twin boys.  They were born in 1985. This January they will be forty.  At least Lee will. Sadly, we lost Dan in a car accident when he was 15.  While I miss him, and love him, and think of him every day, that’s not what this post is about. No, this is about how twins have been a big part of my life since I was a child. My father was a twin. He had a fraternal twin brother. They were as different as night and day!  But when they were together, they had that special “twin language” you hear about.  They’d mumble in a low voice that we could barely hear and couldn’t understand! All the years we worked together, Daddy never understood that I didn’t know what he was thinking the way Uncle Jerry did! When my father was in his final days before his death, in and out of consciousness, he would call out for his brother.  Uncle Jerry said he couldn’t come because it was like he was dying too.  He felt the pain.  I never forgave h...

NOLA. New Orleans, LA.  The Crescent City. The Big Easy.  Call it whatever you want, just don’t call it “New OrLEENS”!   I told you in another post that New Orleans is just about my favorite place.  It’s tied for first place with the Great Smoky Mountains.  Why do I love New Orleans so?  I’ve been going there since I was a child.  I learned city driving there.  My father told me that if I could drive there, I could drive anywhere!  Once again, he was right!  When my father first got into the truck business, he would go there to look for trucks to sell. He made connections with several dealers and companies that had trucks for sale and he went often.  I used to love to go with him because just up the street from one of the truck dealers was a fruit stand.  They had bananas that were too ripe to ship.  Daddy would buy me a sackful of bananas for less than a dollar and I’d eat bananas all the way home!  I love bananas to...

Being a barbecue judge has a lot of perks.  As I’ve said, I get to hang with my friends and eat world class barbecue.  Yesterday, I went to an event that’s one of the best perks.  I was an “Esteemed Judge” at TTWCFWCCONC-XI!  For those of you unfamiliar with those initials, it’s The Tailganator World Championship Freestyle Wing Cooking Contest Of Newton County!  Number 11!   Several years ago, my friend Michael Wayne and his wife Tracy hosted what started out to be an end of the season party for all our barbecue friends.  It started as a tailgate party like at a football game.  It evolved into a contest featuring wings, cooked any way you want, hence the “freestyle”, and  “One Bite Wonders”, something like a hors d’ouvre or canapé that you eat with your fingers, usually in one bite. But the highlight of the event is the “Mystery Mix” cocktail competition!  The cocktails are scored on showmanship as well as taste.  We judge on how el...