As I mentioned in a previous letter, the 4th of July and the adjacent weekend were times for visiting with my father’s side of the family. This Labor Day it was my mother’s side of the family. This gathering was not so big as the July reunions, but it was held at our place.
While my father’s immediate family has stayed in the general New York-Pennslyvania area, my mom’s side of the family has spread out a good deal more. This Labor Day weekend only those who were within a few hours driving distance came: both of my mom’s sisters with their families, and my grandparents with my great-grandmother. All together we made a group of twenty-something, which constitutes a manageable gathering that still rates as a hoopla.
Certainly for us this Labor Day gathering felt like more of a deal than either the reunion on the 4th of July, or the one on the following weekend. This time we were responsible for food preparation, entertainment, and making the place look nice. Delegation helps relieve some of the burden, and not worrying about making this place look wonderful relieves some of the stress. Being male (or just being me), I don’t fret about these things as much as other people do, anyhow. I wanted everything to be as good as possible, and for everyone to enjoy themselves as much as possible, but I figured we would live with any kinks in the plan.
The biggest issue of making this place look nice was actually making this place safe for my great-grandmother. Though some of us around here wish to be neat, and though some of us try to be somewhat organized, the general state of affairs is that we are collectively sloppy. We have things stacked here, and things stacked there, and half-finished projects and unfiled stuff lying all over the place. We all just wander around and step over the various junk, but this doesn’t work when you have a 96-year-old lady coming to visit. So it was general clean-up before Labor Day. The leftover lumber on the porch was moved off. The most obnoxious pieces of leftover sheet rock that was supposedly being saved for the next great project was also moved. The remaining garbage from the roofing project was also taken from the porch. Everything was swept. By the end of clean-up, the front of our house looked halfway (but no more than halfway) respectable.
I was also in charge of cooking the chicken and sausages for the big gathering on Saturday. So long as the weather was good I intended to cook the meat outside over my famous, or infamous, fire pit. (See this letter and this letter if you want to refresh your memory). But rather than repeat my previous experiences I decided to take a go at improving my outdoor culinary endeavors. Mulling the matter over, I thought “Why stick with a measly little fire pit? Wouldn’t it be so much easier, and so much more pleasant if you had a great stone stove which kept the fire raised up to where you could work on it while standing erect?” Yes, a great idea. It would be fabulous.
I started this stone building extravaganza on Friday. If you have ever worked with stone, or ever seen someone work with stone, you know one day is not enough time to build a massive fire stand. The great wall of China was not built in one day. But I am a man who has hope ever springing eternal. And even when my more rational side piped up that I wasn’t going to finish, I figured I could level off whenever I ran out of time, and any improvement I had over the pit would be an improvement indeed.
This fact, at least, was true. I didn’t get anywhere near finishing my wonderfully imagined stone fire holding monolith thingy. I only filled in my initial pit and built up the surrounding walls so the fire could sit at ground level–maybe a foot’s height in stone, maybe a little less. I leveled this off, and it looked pretty decent to me. Sounds like a pathetic amount of work, but consider I had 10-12 linear foot of stone I was laying, and I had to haul the stones from around the property and lay them out myself. Stone work can be fun if you have all the time in the world, but as it was I felt very rushed.
I tell myself all is well that ends well. But I also say I’m going to finish my great stone structure . . . sometime. Yeah, sometime when I’ve lots of time. The small amount of work I’ve already done has given me just a taste of how much more difficult stone laying is the higher you go. One foot isn’t bad at all, but I figure I need to go three feet for a good height, and the higher I go the more tricky it gets. Well, that’s for some other time.
I do think the little I did, changing my fire pit to a fire place, was a great improvement. I seemed to have a much easier time starting my fire. The fire also seemed to burn more evenly. Or else I’m just imagining it all.
Cooking so much food for so many people could have been a very stressful experience, especially considering my smoke blasted, snot nosed experiences of yesterdays. But for the cooking on Saturday I had expert help. Tony, one of my uncles, was once a restaurant proprietor and is a barbecuer. He gave me a hand, but in the end he was so much quicker and on top of things I ended up giving him a hand, and he did most of the work. I don’t know if it was because I had built the fireplace up or because I had help, but somehow I didn’t get myself blasted with smoke this time. It was actually a pretty pleasant experience.
Amazing . . .
The food was cooked well, too. This was due a great deal to the fact that I had help. The more hands there were to turn the sausage and chicken, the fewer pieces were burned. As it was, the chicken was done near excellent, and only a few sausages were burnt. The meat was delicious.
Later in the day there was a marshmallow roast for those interested. When not eating, people were talking, playing cards, or else playing computer games. All around everyone had a good time and plenty to eat.
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