Daddy Ed and Swoots
The Fourth of July! A day of national celebration! A day when the whole country celebrates, not only the birth of our nation, but the birthday of my father as well. Yep! Daddy Ed was born on the Fourth of July, 1886, a son of an itinerant Methodist Preacher.
In his early manhood, among other things, he was a cowboy. Daddy Ed loved to regale us with tales from those days, the most memorable being one about the cook for the cowhands.
It seems that nobody wanted the job of cooking so whenever anyone complained, that guy became the cook. One fellow saddled with that job decided on a way to be replaced; he threw a handful of salt into the beans. The first to taste those beans blurted out, “These beans are awfully salty! But that is just the way I like them.”
That story brings me to a situation in which my siblings and I apparently played a large part. Mother had been “sick abed” and Daddy Ed had to fix breakfast. When he arrived at work considerably late, some of his employees and the crowd of cronies who hung around the shop began to tease him about being late.
Daddy Ed explained, “I had to fix breakfast for the kids.”
Someone countered, “Ed, it doesn’t take that long to make biscuits.”
To which Daddy Ed exclaimed, “No. But it took me that long to make the kids eat them.”
Daddy Ed may not have been able to make good biscuits but he surely did know how to barbeque a side of beef. He was well-known for his delicious barbequed beef!
On one occasion, the manager of the local Coca Cola plant asked Daddy Ed to prepare barbeque beef to feed a gathering of company officials and employees from the area. I remember watching the procedure. Daddy Ed dug a pit and late on the evening prior to the next day’s feast, he started the fire in the pit. He kept adding to that fire until he had a deep bed of glowing red coals. Then he put the rack in place and spread the sides of beef out to bask in the heat of those coals as he continuously painted the beef with his special sauce.
From time to time he would add live, glowing coals from another fire which he had kept nearby. Sometime past midnight he told me that, after properly covering the entire operation, we could go on home and get some sleep.
Unbeknown to Daddy Ed, next morning someone had arrived at the scene before us. That person, seeing that the “fire” under the meat was about out, proceeded “to be helpful” by adding some chunks of wood to the pit. Of course, when the dried wood hit the live coals it soon burst into flames. When Daddy Ed got there to check his “perfect” barbequed beef it had been burned to a crisp.
I don’t remember what happened after that. I do know that there was no barbequed beef served to that gathering.
Perhaps more about Daddy Ed and the Fourth of July will be forthcoming at a later date. For now, I need to submit this so it shall have been entered while it is still July Fourth, 2007.
