So Long, October!

Some people were born to run marathons. I think I was born to drink beer and walk the streets. Just after noon on Devil’s Night, I hopped off the bus in Soho with my pendulous pack on and hoofed my way over to McSorley’s Old Ale House for some fortification.

I’d done my research the previous night, knowing I’d have a day to myself in the Big Apple. I’ve already been to the major museums, Lady Liberty, even the top of the World Trade Center back in the day, so tourist staples were out in favor of more low-key personal pursuits. Weaving up Broadway, I was re-amazed by how many people there are in that city, people of every nationality, physiognomy and smell.

Green barrels out front announced the pub. Inside, it could have been 1859, were it not for the modern-clad lunch crowd –some of whom were dressed for Halloween early—and for gals like me. McSorley’s is famous not just for being one of New York’s oldest bars, but for being forced to open its doors to women for the first time in 1970. All the wood, black-dark; the walls all covered in yellowed photographs of long-dead patrons; sawdust on the floor, ceramic steins lining the back of the bar. I took a table deep in and beside an unlit hearth. The choices were light and dark ale; I ordered a dark and a clam chowder. The ale is served double, two small heady mugs of it, and the chowder comes with a veritable serving spoon. I put my feet up and alternated beer and broth, bitter and creamy, and it set me up well for the rest of Manhattan.

I hit up Pete’s Tavern, established 1864, to drink a Brooklyn Pumpkin Ale where O. Henry once drank; paid homage to a Bust of Washington Irving, thinking delectably frightening thoughts of headless horsemen flinging flaming jack-o-lanterns. I even stepped into Strand Books to admire the shelf of leather-bound classics, and the people who still love books milling through, touching covers. Everywhere I went, there were skeletons, spiderwebs, pumpkins and freaks. I was having the best Friday!

By the time I got to West 81st, my legs were burning and my neck going numb from the backpack. I was looking forward to lounging around Central park for an hour or so. But the color of the trees and the blanket of fallen leaves mesmerized me. I was soon happily lost on The Ramble.

Wooded paths wound around granite outcroppings and away from the carriages and cabs. I stopped to watch lovers rowing boats on the lake in the angled, afternoon sun, with the San Remo towers rising beyond the trees. The light through orange and yellow leaves made everything seem gilded, like the place and the moment were good as gold for me. Slowly now, I rambled under the stone arch and further into the park, leaves dropping all around like memories through my mind.

I feel at home in the world, I realized. I feel at home alike in the wilderness and the metropolis. I remembered when I first visited New York, and perhaps I was even experientially young for my age (although perhaps the age just seems so much younger from here), but that first trip was tough-going. Oh, I loved the sights and history with my natural enthusiasm, but I was put-off by the city’s closeness and speed, baffled by the subway, the neighborhoods, the Boroughs. I thought it was cold, expensive and dirty. (How young was I when I first visited NYC? Young enough to think wearing camo pants was cool.)

Who would have guessed that ten years out, I’d be back in Central Park grabbing a hot dog, settling down for a snooze on a grassy hill while a bagpiper busked for dollars in the distance.

A few weeks back, I was ruing my seemingly permanent academic penury – the old “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” routine. And I acknowledged that my oft-empty coffers are no result of circumstance, but a consequence of my choices. Well on the flipside, anyone could ask me (and some have, in their way), “If you’re so poor, how the hell can you be so happy?” What can I say? I feel lucky. And I am enormously, joyously proud of how my choices have changed me.

The trip was a fitting climax to a terrific month that began back when maples were just tinged with color, and we camped with Chris at what’s become our northern local park – Raccoon Creek State Park west of Pittsburgh (our southern local park being Shenandoah). Then we’d gotten in the Halloween spirit with a nighttime stroll through Holy Rood Cemetery in DC, and a visit to Poe’s house and gravestone in Baltimore. We’d toasted to Laura’s 34th birthday at the coolest old bar in Fells Point. And in New York, the Halloweekend wasn’t over yet. Laura finished her conference obligations in Jersey City and I met her at 6th Avenue and 42nd Street, the orange –lit Empire State Building reflected in one glass tower and the Chrysler Building reflected in another. Friday night still lay open before us. “I could use a drink,” she said, and I pulled my Michigan flask from that big old backpack. Such are the rewards of experience.

We finished the weekend in the company of great friends and the revelry of the Village’s Halloween Parade. Sunday morning, it was So long New York, and So long October. We caught glimpses of the New Yprk City Marathoners running in herds across Manhattan’s bridges as our bus rolled toward the Hudson. Some people were born for that. As for me, the broader streets of DC and the season of winter ales are calling.

Next up: Michigan vs. OSU at The Big House

"I Didn't Write a Book This Summer" and Other Potential Themes for my Back-to-School Pity Party

Those heady days of early May when I had all the time in the world on my hands: gone. Azalea days, blank-slate days, days begun with big plans to kick out a draft of an autobiographical novel by summer’s end: gone. It’s not that I wasted it all; no, I conceptualized, noted, even wrote some. I recovered from a hellaciously busy academic year. And so often, when life came calling, offering road trips or street walkin’, I put the notebook down and chose action over craft and reflection. Time passed like the miles on the odometer. So where did it go?

A lot of it went into my mouth. I had some of the best meals of my life this summer, starting with our mid-May trip through Tennessee and back. On our first day in Nashville, Laura and I checked out a Travel Channel suggestion for down-home country cooking: the Loveless Cafe on the northern terminus of the Natchez Trace. http://www.lovelesscafe.com/ . The place was no secret. Mid-afternoon on a Tuesday, we still faced a 1.5 hour wait, which allowed us to browse the gift shop and write postcards. Yes, the gift shop. I grew concerned that we had fallen into a tourist trap, but when our buzzer went off and we were ushered through the wainscoted dining room, its gingham-covered tables laden with plates of biscuits, country breakfasts, chicken and ribs, I knew every body in the joint was there for the real deal. We got a corner table, comfortably seated between tall paintings of Johnny Cash and Jesus. The biscuits – the specialty so heavily promoted on TV shows by their baker, Carol Fay – came hot and fast, and were high-risen, moist, butterlicious. I’d like to sleep on a bed of those biscuits.

And the fried chicken touched my soul. Really, I’ve tried to describe it with the terminology of both religious epiphany and sexual ecstasy, but words fail. It was perfect, period, and any variation in its preparation might have compromised that perfection. How much care and experience must a cook bring to the fryer to get it so right? Further down the road, I had the best ribs of my life at A & R Barbecue, and some stunning sweet potato pancakes at The Arcade, both in Memphis. I washed it all down with some fine swill, too, like Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel and scuppernong wine from Asheville, North Carolina.

And there was song. Laura and I kicked off June with and unprecedented three-night run at the 9:30 Club, probably my favorite venue in D.C. Maybe the bands that play there are just big enough, or the ticket prices just high enough, so the crowd isn’t afraid to show a little enthusiasm. (I get regularly pissed-off about D.C.’s disaffected audiences.) Since I’m like a dwarf, “seeing” shows is relative. We arrived pretty late for the Doves concert, so I’m not really sure how many Doves there were up there, but not only was their sound studio-tight, the show featured a video-screen backdrop where captivating images of urban alienation and psychic apocalypse (and hand-bones) accompanied the trippy performance. Night two: The Hold Steady, the band that rocks my heart out. I put a flask down my sock and got up to the stage early for a great view of the keyboardist and bassist, of Craig Finn’s animated delivery and of all the sing-along kids with their fists in the air. The day after, I woke up late feeling spent and empty. The sun hurt. I couldn’t imagine going at it again. Laura and I walked the blocks around the club sipping a Rogue, not quite adjusted to night life, but adjusting. In the cool dark club, a quilted curtain hung behind the stage, a bright, warm, abstract backdrop for TV on the Radio, who opened with their haunting “Love Dog.” Never have I seen a more musically beautiful rock show.

Mind you, my summer wasn’t all eating and rocking out and hyperbole. I did work a few weeks at summer arts camp and even made a painting of my own, something I haven’t done in years. And I did wrestle some words onto the page, writing at campground picnic tables, in the heat of my high-rise apartment, at Mayorga Coffee, in the middle of Rock Creek. I like the solitary nature of writing, but when you’re writing constantly about the people and places you’ve loved, you stoke a deep social craving. So off we went to Michigan in early July, and to Minnesota in late July to reconnect with family and friends. In Ann Arbor, Chris Palmer hosted a little barbeque in his backyard. We spent a fun day getting giddy for the party, stringing his ’71 VW bus with party lights, laying blankets down beneath the heavy-fruited mulberry tree, chilling the Michigan craft-brews and checking email to see who all would show. Pete and Heather Lee came early. We hadn’t seen Heather for five years. Pete, however, kept things consistent by showing up with a bottle of Pucker. Some things have changed, and some things never change, but during those hours of reunion, the ache in my heart that has, to some degree, existed since we stopped sharing cities and sharing lives was temporarily soothed. And then Mike and Sue showed up with Aidan and a croquet set; Suzanne and Paul came, celebrating new jobs; Barb and Tim brought the kids who have grown into fine young citizens; Kyoko and Jason brought Sakura and we made camping promises; Ben and Dina brought their boy Benjy and a good supply of Stroh’s. We laughed and drank and danced too much, and yet, the night was too short. But so sweet. And it proved that my memories are not overly-romantic, and my pickiness when it comes to friends is not unjustified. I looked around myself in Chris’s backyard and saw some of the most fun, most interesting, best-hearted people in the world. And that’s what I meant to write about; I’m most disappointed that I didn’t record and arrange more memories (and fictionalize them just enough to protect our reputations).

As I wallowed in that disappointment (which is not as strong a motivator as one might think), contracts for academic year 09/10 arrived in the mail; I revised syllabi; I watched each day growing shorter with a low-grade sense of panic. I started a list of things to look forward to in the fall, things like football, paychecks, season 3 of Mad Men, Oktoberfest beer. But with time on my hands the final weekend before back-to-school, did I buckle down and kick out a few chapters? You bet I didn’t, because some newer friends invited Laura and I to camp in the Catskills, and we’d never camped in the Catskills before, and we were eager to build upon our acquaintance with those particular fun, interesting, good-hearted people. We were eager to cool off, see the stars, climb the peaks, build the fires. We got rained on all weekend, and the drive was long, but I loved the thunderstorm-camaraderie, the clean smell of the creek mist and the green, piney smell of the mountain top, the laughter and the beer. That’s my problem – if it is one: I split my bets. When it comes to wine, women and song; food, friends and the road, I live like there’s no tomorrow. When it comes to fulfilling writing goals, I live like I’ve got all the time in the world. The rewards of the former are so immediate; the rewards of the latter, so uncertain, if not altogether unlikely. So be it. All I can do is perpetually re-commit to those elusive writing goals. Who knows, maybe Fall 09 is when the draft gets done (in between teaching comp classes at American and Maryland). But I know one thing for sure: Come Labor Day Weekend, you’ll find me up on the Allegheny Reservoir, enjoying the company of two of my favorite co-campers, Laura and Chris. We’re going to get out on that water and up in those hills, and every fire-cooked omelette and hobo pie will warrant an impromptu ode.

Shenadoah Trip, July 2009

"In the long history of humankind (and animalkind, too) those who have learned to collaborate and to improvise most effectively have prevailed." –Charles Darwin

“I adapt to any and all situations; that’s why they call me the pimp of the nation.” –Kid Rock

Perfection isn’t rare when you’re easily pleased like me. Any trip to Shenandoah National Park, with all its flora, fauna and spectacular views from Skyline Drive, defines a perfect summer weekend. Laura and I hadn’t been to the park since October, and when other plans fell through on a late July weekend, we jumped at the chance to do an overnighter. Laura said she was counting on plenty of bears and blackberries, and I went to bed Friday night with the camping bin packed, and visions of wild blackberry pancakes sweetening last moments before sleep.

And I woke up at three in the morning, miserable. My seasonal allergies (April through October) are so severe that I sometimes can’t tell whether it’s allergies or swine flu. I’ll spare the details, but symptoms persisted through morning, and when we hit the road, I was feeling anything but perfect. Even a fresh-from-the-hot-grease, apple cider donut from Apple House couldn’t fully elevate my spirits.

Still, I was so happy to enter the park at Front Royal and feel the slight cooling from elevation as we wound our way up Skyline. It was even hazier than usual, humid and in the 90s in the lowlands. But a relatively cool spring with plenty of rain had all the greens full and lush, the roadsides thick with wild bee balm, black eyed susans, tiger lilies, coreopsis, yarrow.

We made it to Mathews Arm campground ahead of noon and found a newly vacant, densely wooded site. We set up our small tent, the REI Half Dome, mostly mesh and great for warm summer nights under the stars. Camp made, we entered the brush. Wild blueberry bushes abounded, but the berries were all green. Firewood, however, did not abound. I spotted two logs with potential, and we had at them with our tip-broken handsaw. And man, was it hot. By the time we’d cut two logs, we were both sweating like boxers in the tenth round. Much as we like the manual labor and getting stuff for free, we were actually going to have to buy wood. “We should’ve replaced the saw,” Laura noted. And so began the list of things we should have brought but didn’t, including:

Can opener (had to hack into can with knife)
Eggs (had to buy)
Syrup (went without)
Fruits, vegetables (to cut the sausages and starches)
Some form of dessert (had no s’mores, no hobo pies)
Food for two lunches (had only dinner, breakfast)
Small backpack for hiking
Change of underwear for next day

While Laura drove up to Elkwallow to buy wood, I lay down in the tent to try and recover from the bad night’s sleep and heat stroke. When she returned, we threw a bottle of water into her big backpack and set off on a hike to Overall Run Falls, the highest falls in the park at 93’. Let’s say this was our sixth time camping at Shenandoah – we’ve attempted to find the Overall Run Falls at least three times before and failed. But this time I got a map with explicit instructions from a ranger, each turn highlighted, additional notes written in. And off we went, into the humid woods and up, up, up some rocky ridges. The hike got long; we heard no trickling water. Doubts arose. By the time we figured out where we’d gone wrong, we’d made one big strenuous circle, not to the falls but to the parking lot at the bottom of the park. I went ahead and cried a little.

But such sorrows can be assuaged with a cold beer and a good fire, so back at the site, we produced both. A deeper look in the woods brought forth plenty of kindling, what you need when the fire is young, and we settled around it, feeding it, listening to the hiss and crackle. It was burning perfectly. Ice cold Budweiser made a perfect thirst quencher. But Laura had her eye on some fluffy, rolling clouds. “Should we put the fly on the tent?” she wondered, and I said, no way, that it wasn’t going to rain. And it was as if my words drew the vapors straight down from the sky. Suddenly we weren’t beneath the clouds but within them and we got good and drenched getting that fly on the tent in time to keep our gear dry. We sat out the cloudburst in the car. The fire was intact when we emerged because I’d put down the grate and stacked wood over it. It was nothing to get it raging again.

Luckily, we’d gotten our rain shelter back from Kyoko and Jason, and they’d taken excellent care of it. It’s basically a large tarp with a center pole and four corner poles, and the picture on its packaging makes it look neat, sturdy and easy to assemble. In fact, it never worked as intended, and setting it up is always an exercise in cooperation and improvisation, meaning an awful lot of cussing takes place while ropes get tied to trees, and the flimsy poles bend under stress. I was shoving the center pole (and its pot-lid topper – another jimmy-fix) up toward the sky when the next storm split open directly above me and I left the pole to the lightning and ran screaming toward the car.

But a funny thing happened the next time the rain cleared, afternoon sun drawing steam from pavement and perfumey milkweeds. Just as we got the shelter worked out and discovered with glee that the Half Dome’s floor was still dry as a bone, our neighbors began to pack up all their wet tents and head out. People were giving up.
“Hah! Quitters!”
“Yeah; wow, some people are so soft-core. This isn’t even too bad.”
“No, not too bad at all.” We got awfully superior about our coping abilities.

So we poured one shot in honor of the rain shelter, under which it was possible to remain outdoors on a summer night of fickle weather. We cooked chilidogs and campfire potatoes, dousing the hot, tender potatoes in chili and shredded cheddar. Oh, and the salty sauciness did a damp body good. We even saw some stars before we slept, though storms rolled through until morning.

But what a bell-clear morning it was. Laura made a huge stack of moist, sweet pancakes, Bob Evans links and scrambled eggs. With all that fuel to run, we decided to have a perfect Sunday, to make up for all of Saturday’s foibles. Forget damned Overall Run Falls, we drove south on Skyline to the Hawksbill Mountain Trail. It, too, had its superlative feature – at 4050’, it’s the highest summit in the park. And it was a lovely hike, perfectly steep and taxing for the first mile and a half. At the summit, there’s a 360 degree view from an overlook called Byrd’s Nest, the craggy, exposed summit rock contrasting with the smoother lines of surrounding Appalachia, all verdant after the night’s rain. I lay on a ridge, rock disappearing beneath me. The rock was sun-warm, the wind was cool, humidity lifted. This was the reward, and I felt like I’d earned it, not just by my legs but by perseverance.



We took a longer route back to the trailhead, hiking part of the Appalachian Trail along a scenic ridge. When we came down from the mountain and headed back up Skyline homeward, we finally saw some bears, one single and one with a cub. Bears are easy to spot on Skyline Drive, not just because their solid blackness stands out, but because traffic in both directions backs up so folks can get a glimpse and maybe a photo. So when we ran up on such a traffic jam with no big black beast in sight, we were puzzled. I rolled down the window and a man walking toward me yelled “Snake!”, pointing down. A few feet from the car, it slithered through the grass, stretched long, its rattle raised in warning. Crotalus horridus, the timber rattler, highly venomous but relatively non-aggressive, it was the first rattlesnake I’ve ever seen in the wild.



We all need places where we go to re-create ourselves, where we find respite, refreshment, renewal. I know that sleeping on the ground among deadly creatures doesn’t do it for everybody, but it does it for me. My yoga instructor always asks, “What did you experience on the mat that you can take with you off of the mat?” I ask the same of camping trips: what did I discover in the woods that I can take out of the woods with me? The desire to re-create is a quest, after all. And when you know you love a place, and you go to it with gladness, with expectation, with an open heart, you want it to be perfect. What if it isn’t?

Chances are, there will come times when it won’t be. And I don’t want to summarize with some Sally Sunshine platitude, the old “best-way-out-is-through” business. (If the rain had never let up, perseverance would look like the wrong decision.) But I’ve never been let down by my best efforts to be patient within a situation, by using whatever I’ve got to make the most of it. When I’m camping, I’m determined to have a good time, whatever the conditions, so I’ve learned to cuss the rain tarp into functionality, to protect a fire so it can burn long, to laugh off the storms with a beer and some hot nourishment. What parallels can I draw between the realities of camping and daily realities? If so much depends on attitude, I figure I’m better off betting that perseverance brings unexpected rewards.

In Honor of Hemingway's Birthday

“Don't you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky? When you are cold and wet what else can warm you? Before an attack who can say anything that gives you the momentary well-being that rum does?... Modern life, too, is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief. " _Ernest Hemingway, Postscript to letter to Ivan Kashkin (19 August 1935); published in Ernest Hemingway : Selected Letters 1917-1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

It was hot last Monday. I’d spent all day outside and when I got home I had to shower off the sweat, tempera paint and creek water. The sun was still hard, intensified by rush-hour exhaust as I walked up the block and down thirteen steps into dark, cool Quarry House Tavern. On half-price burger night, you can’t afford not to go, and my god, it makes a Monday, especially a Monday when the next weekend seems totally unachievable.

I took a table in the red back room, a long reach to the jukebox on one side and the bar on the other. I was the first customer back there, and as I sat waiting for Laura and drinking my cold Stone IPA, I watched the tavern door swing open over and over, reflected in a beer mirror. Laura came in and I ordered her amber while the door kept swinging and the place filled up around us. The beer, the people, the mixed rhythms of simultaneous conversations and a flux of waitstaff –in with trays of bottles and pints, out with fluttering tickets—brightened and animated the whole bar.

Laura ordered mushroom and swiss, me, pico de gallo and pepperjack. It was a compromise, you see, because I couldn’t decide between the two, and though Laura kind of wanted grilled onions and provolone, she relented. She called for a refill on the amber and I tried a Wolaver’s IPA (which I liked loads better than the Stone) and we each played the jukebox. I remember “Whipping Post” sounding particularly fine, and Laura played “Gotta Be Starting Something,” even though I’d opined that tribute time was over. When the song came on, every hipster that passed us looking for a table picked up its groove and chattered about Michael Jackson.

In the ladies’ room, that low-ceilinged sanctuary behind the stacks of beer boxes and the rockabilly stage, I took a break between beers and lingered to read the grafitti on the yellow walls. Some dipshit misquoted Hemingway. She wrote, “Wouldn’t it be nice if it were true,” and maybe even spelled Hemingway wrong. I came back to the table vowing to return with a Sharpie and deliver a memorable lesson.

The burgers arrived, steaming with that grilled meat smell that tickles something deep in your brainstem and triggers lusty salivation. On the side, mixed greens with a thick homemade blue cheese, so good we’d later smuggle home an extra cup. And the meat, grass-fed, organic, three-quarters of an inch thick with a skin of good grill char and pink straight through – it just yielded to tooth and slaver. Juices of the meat and the toppings came layered and reached balance while I chewed. My stomach received it well and peace spread from there. We toasted to our neighborhood bar, and to the best burger anywhere, every single time.

The sun set as we walked the block home. Upstairs, we turned on some music and got loose. I suppose we talked of the usual things: work is hard; money is tight; time is precious. But, as is often the case when one’s belly is full of good meat and one’s spirit is high on good ale, our talk turned to travels, pleasures, loves. I poured two shots of Mount Gay into souvenir shotglasses –probably recent acquisitions like Memphis, Asheville—and raised another toast to summer, this summer, lived full from the Mississippi Delta up to Michigan and back, a toast to the potential still left in the last third.

“To summer,” I said. “There will come a day when it never has to end.”

And Laura, clinking up, said, “'Isn’t it pretty to think so?'”

Southern Road Trip: The Beer and Barbecue Reports

The Beer Report

I sampled a plethora of fine brews on my southern road trip, not a bad one in the bunch. Here’s my ranking from bottom to top –all recommendations.

12. Pikeland Pils, Sly Fox Brewing, Phoenixville, PA. A decent, flavorful pilsner; a (much) better Busch, creamy and sufficiently hopped, good for a day when you’re in the mood to drink a hundred beers.

11. Mamma’s Little Yella Pils, Oskar Blues, Lyons, CO. Everything OB produces pleases me. This one is a crisp pilsner.

10. St. Charles Porter, Blackstone, Nashville. Laura’s choice. I only go for porters in winter, but this was clean, like a light-roast coffee.

9. Cottonwood Endo IPA, Boone, NC. IPA’s/pale ales are my favorite, and this one was a shocker. It is extremely malty for an IPA, good, but pushes the formula.

8. Sweetwaters 420, Atlanta, GA. Following an IPA with this one kills it, but it’s a decent, quaffable pale.

7. Sweetwaters IPA, Atlanta Georgia. An easy to drink IPA, almost creamy balanced by enjoyable sharpness.

6. Highland Kashmir IPA, Asheville, NC. I enjoyed this one with a catfish po’ boy at lunch and it was fully wonderful, strong but not too bitter with a citrusy hop.

5. Highland St. Terese, Asheville, NC. A nice amber pale with a good caramel malt and fragrant hop balance.

4. Yazoo IPA, Nashville, TN. A tougher, tarter version of the ubiquitous pale.

3. Yazoo Pale Ale, Nashville. I rank this high perhaps because I drank it most and developed fondness through that consistency. It’s amber, spicy, a bit sweet curbed by tart hops, and fairly full-flavored.

2. Lazy Magnolia Reb Ale, Kiln, MS. I rank this high because it was most surprising. Now I don’t typically judge a beer based on the politics of the brewer, but let’s say that by the time I cracked a cold one, I’d had my fill of the confederacy, so I was glad to see the label praising positive rebellion (as in progress and non-conformity) and not sounding a paean to ol’ Dixie. It was created to honor the big market for it in Oxford, and I just couldn’t stop cracking ‘em. Rosy apricot colored with moderate honeysuckle hops (or was that the night air flavoring it?).

1. Starr Hill Northern Lights IPA, Charlottesville, VA. So refreshing with whalloping grapefruity hops and nothing cloying about it.


The Barbecue Report

One goal pursued on my southern road trip was barbeque pork sandwich saturation. I’m happy to say I met that goal, regretting only that I didn’t have a higher tolerance – I would have liked a go at a couple more sandwiches to make it an even ten. Here are the rankings:

8. Rippy’s, Nashville, TN. An open air, corner bar on Broadway full of TVs and tourists to whom an awkward two-piece cover band prostituted themselves. The pulled pork sandwich was equally mundane, an average, mildly smoky, hastily seasoned meat moistened by middle-of-the-road sauce. But the onion rings were big and crispy and I got a free beer.

7. Rum Boogie Café, Memphis TN. Like Rippy’s, Rum Boogie was a corner bar catering to tourists on Beale, but with much better atmosphere and two cookin’ blues stages. Brick and dark with over a hundred guitars lining the walls and hung from the ceiling, guitars once played by bluesmen from Willie Dixon to Kenny Wayne to ...ahem…Jon Bon Jovi. But the sandwich was ordinary, in fact, nothing memorable about it whatsoever. Notable, however, were their fried green tomatoes, battered in cornmeal and spices and perfectly fried, served with ranch and horseradish sour cream.

6. Herb’s Pit BBQ, Murphy, NC. We were in a hurry to eat some Carolina-style barbecue in Carolina, and perhaps stopped too soon. Herb’s chopped pork sandwich had a nice vinegar to it, but it wasn’t as soft as it could have been and had no smoke to it at all. Sauce on the side was flimsy. Still, it ranks above the previous as fresher, more unique.

5. B’s BBQ, Oxford, MS. Never balk at a gas station bbq. A good smoker, meat and pit-person can produce anywhere. We got this recommendation off the internet and were not disappointed. It was a big, sloppy thing with vinegary tomato-based sauce on the side, subtle but savory. Sides of fried okra and pinto beans were plainly delicious.

4. General Lee’s, between Knoxville and Nashville, TN. Another truck-stop joint which also contained a “Civil War Room”. This sandwich was goosebump-inducing good, a well-done but still-moist chopped shoulder with a nice hickory smoke permeating. Great texture combination between soft, juicy meat and delicious chewy bits from the outer crust. Sauce on the side was orange and tangy sweet.

3. Station Inn, Nashville, TN. I picked one up from the snack window of a terrific, intimate, acoustic bar well off of flashy Broadway strip where we dropped in on bluegrass jam and ended up shutting the place down. You pass the prominent smoker on your way in and out of the bar. The meat, stringier than chopped shoulder, perhaps loin or rib-area, was smokaliciously delectable. It’s a tough call ranking this one third, but it’s like this: I know smoked meat should stand on its own – and this sure did – but I love my sauce. I like ketchup on onion rings, tartar on fish, butter on crab, and I like a side of sauce to play with when I eat bbq. No sauce.

2. Three L’il Pigs, Daleville, VA. The first place we stopped, a restaurant in a small strip mall near I-81, it didn’t seem as promising as what it delivered: soft, succulent, smoky pork, wet with vinegar and pepper sauce, slaw on the side. Although we were in Virginia, the menu touted this Carolina-style pork by giving the owner’s background: Carolina raised, a graduate of UNC, he started the restaurant in 1990 and expanded. They also served what they called Virginia-style sauce, which was like the NC vinegar we’d ordered, with tomato and sugar added. I love when a restaurant is so confident about their specialty that they set rules. The menu explicitly asked customers never to request cheese on their already-perfect product.

1. Apple House, Front Royal, VA. Only after I took my first bite did I realize that no matter how much I had consciously striven for new experience, in the back of my mind, my old familiar Apple House bbq was the standard by which all others were measured. The others were wonderful dalliances; Apple House’s sandwich is the one I can’t live without. The smoker’s name is Petunia. She’s pictured lovingly at the counter, smoking even in an ice-storm. Stopping at the Apple House on the way to Shenandoah has become routine. The smoky meat is coated with sauce bold in both spice and sweetness. It’s consistently good, but like any small-batch recipe, it varies just perceptibly from visit to visit. It was a comforting homecoming and fitting cap to my latest quest for porcine perfection.