Raider Fan and The Bride were visiting family in Cumming, Georgia the other day when we passed by this gas station. What is it about these old well-preserved structures? Is it simple nostalgia or does their existence cause us on some level to understand that the pace of change has left us with a sense that there is no stable ground upon which we may stand?
We at ABE Ministry, at least in some sense, welcome the celerity of chaotic change as it is a constant reminder of the need to hate the world and to love Jesus, King of Heaven and Earth, Our Lord, Our Creator, Redeemer, and Savior for He, and He alone, is our rock, our stability in this wicked and wild world.
O, and, yeah, the station is neat...
Rich, the Bride's brother, made us some Texas Style Brisket, smoked low and slow - 225 degrees for 15 hours - and Raider Fan feels pity for those who have never eaten this fair fare.
Try it at home, here's the recipe; and all the reader has to do is get his own self a smoker and use some charcoal and some apple wood chunks and go low and slow after applying a dry rub.
O, and do use a mopping sauce; it makes the brisket taste mo'better
The thirteen pound brisket after its dry rub baptism and overnight nap in the fridge:
No, Raider Fan can not describe just how good this brisket was, suffice it to say that there is nothing else like it in the world.
The next morning, Rich took Raider Fan to get some breakfast for the girls.
Yeah, that's what Raider Fan thought initially; but,what the hell, when in Georgia...
Yeah, agreed. In Wellington, the town officials would have closed this dump down two decades ago but this is rural Georgia and things are done differently there.
And look, there are cars lined-up to pick-up their orders of Cat Head Biscuits and Country Ham or Cat Head Biscuits and Sausage or Cat Head Biscuits and Ptomaine. The biscuits were as large as they were dry; they are called Cat Heads owing to their size and, no, Raider Fan has never eaten a cat's head and so he doesn't know if the naming of those biscuits also had anything to do with that.
Of course, after breakfast the girls had to stalk the aisles of an antique store and we at ABE Ministry were not as excited about that as they were.
They were as excited about visiting and discovering heretofore unexperienced goods roughly the same way that Bill Clinton became excited when he was on the campaign trail and went to Las Vegas the very Memorial Day weekend that the brothels were having a two-for-one sale.
This was the one thing in the store we almost purchased to hang outside the doors of ABE Ministry:
O, the last photo is from the side yard of sister-in-law, Andrea, in Franklin, Tennessee. Luckily for her a Bluebird has chosen to nest in her bird house. Raider Fan had to snap the photo from inside as Bluebirds are as beautiful and shy as brides used to be on their wedding night.
