50 YEARS OF BBQ: JUNE AND CHICKEN AND PORK... OH MY!!

June Porter
The Grandfather of our Men's BBQ!

What goes on behind the scenes of the Men's Barbecue STAYS behind the scenes of the Men's Barbecue!  At least that is what several of the men essentially told me.  Getting them to talk was like pulling teeth!!  I got the feeling that most of the "good" stories were not fit to print - at least in a church blog!!  Joe Palumbo summed it up:  "Its a great time for fellowship."  

Joe Palumbo sautes onions for the Men's BBQ

I can't quite back it up with facts, but I'm pretty sure that Advent has had a Men's Barbecue all 50 of its years!  There is a record of one in the first Annual Report and I couldn't document a lapse.  No one seemed to know when they began having two each year, but I know for certain that goes back 35 years or more.  Russ McKittrick recalls that in the late 80's they cooked about 50 pounds of Boston Butts in the Fall and 100 pounds of chicken in the Spring.  They are now approaching 300 pounds of pork and 200 pounds of chicken!

June "Counsels" Dave Park on Cooking Chicken @ 1982

Joe Palumbo remembers cooking the baked beans in the old church kitchen.  Only 2 small pans would fit in the apartment sized ovens at a time, so the 4 or 5 pans would have to be rotated every two hours, and it was impossible to get everything hot at the same time.  Russ recalls that Mabel Porter would only reveal one or two ingredients per year for her famous baked beans and then she wouldn't tell them how much of the ingredient to use. "I just put enough in so that it tastes right," she would say.  It took Joe Palumbo almost a decade to get the recipe "close" to Mabel's.

Keith Wassum Puts the Smoke in Smoked Pork

If June and Mabel Porter didn't give "birth" to the Advent Men's Barbecue, they were definitely the nurturers of it!  June would buy all of the ingredients for the barbecue and Russ remembers he had a special crooked stick he would use to retrieve them from his truck's bed.  Seeing him poke the stuff around and out of his truck would begin a carefully choreographed ritual.  He would begin by cooking breakfast for all of the men.  Several men would become the designated stirrers of the grits and barbecue sauce pots and they were given strict instructions to stir constantly. Woe be unto him who let either pot stick!!  June was also very particular about chopping the slaw.  It had to be done by hand with his doughnut shaped cutters.  He claimed that food processors "burned" the cabbage and it had to be fine enough so that it "wouldn't bother folks in the congregation with bad teeth."  Sometime during the process, Mabel would show up with peach cobbler for everyone.  The men would always look forward to her coming, and the cobbler rarely lasted more than 10 minutes!  While Mabel truly wanted to nurture the men while they cooked for the congregation, it was also well known that another motivation was to "check up" on June!

June and Mabel Porter Received an Award for their Efforts

June was a tinkerer and a builder and he and some of the men built cookers out of 250 gallon drums.  June then rigged some pulleys and chains and ropes from an A-framed swing set to open the lids to the drums.  It stayed out in the side of the parking lot until rust claimed it a few years ago.

Basting Chicken!

The free will offering for the Fall pork barbecue averages about $250 and is used to pay the State Charter, honorary lifetime achievement awards and subsidize tickets to the Annual Charlotte  Area Lutheran Men's Chicken and Corn Roast.  They also buy kitchen supplies and have a reserve fund.  Not bad for a small group of men!

At some point early on, an auction was added to the chicken barbecue  in the Spring.  Over the last five years over $17,000 has been given to hurricane relief, Via de Christo,the 500 Year Lutheran Celebration, Advent youth mission trips, the Wycliffe Bible Ministry, Juvenile Diabetes Association, supplies for Room at the Inn, Kairos Ministry, and our new electronic sign!  That is just in the last five years!  Imagine all that we have supported over 50 years!

These folks would be sitting in our Sanctuary now!
Paul Eich standing - Eric Sandburg (with beard!) behind him

In the early days of the barbecue and before the gym was built, the barbecue and auction were held outside and as a result, folks would see us and come from the College Downs community.  I remember if there was the slightest lag in the start of the bidding on an item, June would bid $1.  The Lord only knows how many $1 dollar items he bought over the years.  Most of them were recycled back to the auction the next year!!  (And he probably bought them again!)

David Park Auctions Off Advent's Children...
Well, at least their labor!
The youth would often get involved by auctioning off
grass cutting, window washing and babysitting.

One infamous item that made the rounds for about five years was a flaming blue wig.  Bidding wars would result over this item, for the winner of the bid got to decide who would have to wear it to church the next day!  

Another famous bidding war occurred in the 80's when Eric Sandburg decided to auction off his beard.  Martha wanted him to keep it, and she outbid Anita White who wanted him to shave it.  Martha ended up paying about $25 (which is equivalent to $75 today! - I looked it up.) so that Eric did not have to shave!!  As I remember it, nearly the whole congregation was pooling their money to contribute to their view of whether Eric should shave or not shave!

Last year an item returned to the auction after almost 20 years.  When we downsized in 1999, we brought David's Granddaddy's scythe to the auction and Tom Miller bought it.  Last Spring he brought it back and Dave cued me to bid on it and buy it to display at our mountain house.  Keith Wassum had the same idea and he began bidding on it to give to Dave!  As a great charity auctioneer, Dave just let us bid each other up!  The scythe now has a revered place at Park's Peak.

Now the men have partnered with Adventure Preschool and the barbecue coordinates with the "Trick or Trunk" and Fall 
Festival.  It remains a big outreach to the community.

Jake Thrower Checks Out
 the Activities for the Fall Festival

Many other stories may remain in the secret lore of the men's fellowship, but through the barbecues, the men have bonded and become a group that nurtures each other and many activities in our church.  The barbecue truly nourishes our bodies and souls!!

Pastor Hess (far right) Enjoys BBQ with Parishioners 

FROM 3 TO 100 WALKERS WALKING TO END HUNGER!

Colette Hishon and Cheri Strickland with "Shoey"

When I first walked in the CROP walk in the late 80's the slogan was "We walk because they walk".  The idea was that in the 3rd world many folks had to walk over 10 miles to get water and food every day.  We would seek pledges for a 10 mile walk and collect money for both hunger in the 3rd world and hunger at home.  The walk really was 10 miles!   We started at Memorial Stadium near CPCC and walked uphill through the city (that's one reason its called "UPtown"!) to Johnson C. Smith.  This was considered the half way point.  Their band would play for us and there would be water and candy stations along with the most-needed port-a-johns!  Then the route would wind through "food-desert" neighborhoods back to Memorial Stadium.  For many of us it was the first time we had encountered neighborhoods in Charlotte where hunger is an issue.  Cheri Strickland vividly remembers the last year the walk was 10 miles was 1990, for she was very pregnant with Mary Faith.  She still made it all 10 miles!

Cheri also remembers the first year Advent participated (1987) we sent just three walkers - Marilyn Burns, Martha Sanburg and her!    Pastor Little got the congregation and especially the youth group behind their efforts and our participation began to grow.  A few years ago we had over 100 walkers! For many years Advent raised the most money in our category (based on the size of the church), and for several years we out-raised all churches  - even the BIG ones!  I think this was due to Cheri and Kirby Strickland's dedication and hard work as organizers.  Cheri soon joined the city-wide CROP Walk board and during her tenure, Charlotte became the largest CROP Walk in the country!  She appeared one year with other Advent members in a commercial (PSA) for the CROP Walk with Harvey Gantt.  

CROP walkers eat lunch before going to Memorial Stadium

While serving as a city-wide organizer, Cheri remembers one year when a hurricane blew through the city the Saturday night before.  The steering committee met early Sunday morning and considered postponing the event, but decided against it when someone pointed out that the hungry must walk and search for food no matter the weather.  About an hour before the walk was to start, the rain quit, a rainbow appeared and it felt as if the city had been "washed clean".  They knew they had made the right decision.

Cheri and Kirby received the Sam Ryburn Walker award, given annually to individuals who have shown extraordinary spirit and dedication to inspire others in the fight against hunger.  A few years later Keith and Diane Wassum also won the award.  Keith says the biggest honor of receiving the award was having Cheri and Kirby nominate them for it and be part of the presentation.

Keith and Diane remain Advent's top walkers and are already listed as one of the city's top walkers this year on the CROP website.  Keith remembers that Advent raised as high as $12,000 in years past and we've averaged around $10,000 the past five years.  The Wassums raised $4875 of that amount last year and have raised almost $64,000 since they began walking when Diane was pregnant with Allie!

From this year's CROP Charlotte website
as of October 5th...

Keith sent me this memory from one of his walks:
"One of my favorite remembrances was the year we were going to be out of town and couldn't walk in the Charlotte walk.  We made arrangements to walk in the CROP Hunger Walk in Lexington, NC a week or so earlier.  Dale (his nephew), Diane and I drove up and joined the walk.  We were welcomed like we were honored guests from Charlotte!  What a hoot!  The Lexington walk was smaller but they were just as passionate!  At the time they had painted pigs displayed throughout the town and it was fun to see many of them during the walk."

In the years David and I haven't walked, we have continued to participate by contributing to those who do walk.  For many years we would give Kate and Allie Wassum  a quart of quarters  (about $400) which we would accumulate from our spare change over the year just for the CROP Walk.  Their memories of counting and rolling the quarters are vivid if not exactly  cherished!  When Allie walked in a charity walk up in Boston two years ago, I sent her a pint of small change for "old times sake".  I think it cost me almost as much to send it as there was in it (it was not all quarters)!  

Advent continues to contribute leadership to the Charlotte CROP Walk as our own Jennie Henderson has joined the steering committee.  While helping other churches organize their walks, she also is Advent's point person for CROP Walk.  She remembers that Advent was invited a few years ago to help hold the banner that leads the walk through the city.  When asked for other memories, she laughed and said it has become a joke that the only time the walkers see Eddie Efird is at the beginning of the walk, for he takes off walking faster than everyone and almost always finishes first, at least among Advent's walkers!  I guess he has earned the nickname, "Fast Eddie"!

Last year's walkers

Competition with other charity walks, Panther games and maintaining enthusiasm over time has been hard on Charlotte's CROP Walk.  It is no longer 10 miles, but 4.1 miles and last year it was moved to the 2nd Saturday (vs. Sunday) in October which most believed contributed to a decline in the number of walkers city-wide.  Instead of Memorial Stadium, walkers now begin and end in Independence Park.  Jennie knows that involving the youth is the key to our (and the city's) success at raising money for world hunger and would like to see more youth involved. While the CROP walk might be smaller, the need to help the hungry has only grown.  Wouldn't it be great if Advent could once again top 100 walkers and raise more than the mega-churches?!  It's not too late to contribute to a walker.  Contact Jennie Henderson or the church office!!

READERS:  Someone pointed out that the "comment" section wasn't working.  I think I have that fixed.  Please leave comments and start a conversation about Advent's Jubilee year!  If you have stories to contribute email me or call me.  Deb at 704 335 0984 or debdavepark@gmail.com