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| 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."
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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!)
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| 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.
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| 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!!
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| Pastor Hess (far right) Enjoys BBQ with Parishioners |
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