Driving To Despair

The family roadtrip vacation is now one for the ages. On Saturday, we left Hershey, Pennsylvania at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. I put in the final marathon stretch of driving through the last of 13 states, covering 10 days of family togetherness, to arrive home at 7:30 p.m. Central Time. Just in time to see the Bears play the Seahawks in Preaseason practice game 2. After two quarters, I wanted to get back in the car. After two years of listening and reading about our quarterback situation, you all got to see in living color how bad this offensive line really is. Grossman had no chance. It was as if the line refused to block, imposing their own will (or lack of one) on this QB "controversy." "Hey," they were saying, "we are the truly shitty part of this team and its time we got our recognition." So, enough about the QB. It's Orton, and he's taller, so he can see over the oncoming slaughter for a slightly longer time. Enough time to decide on which sideline to throw they ball away and avoid the sack.

If you are ever in Orangeberg County, South Carolina, be sure to find Duke's Barbecue. It is a little shack of a place off the interstate in a small town just north of Columbia. When you walk in, you are summoned to a cafeteria steam table, no different than the one in your high school lunchroom. What that table contains is the best barbecue that you can find in the world. For $7.50, the lady behind the counter pulls out a large Styrofoam takeout plate with sections. Telling her that I was a rookie, she gave me the house specials. Pulled pork like I love it, slightly dry, not fatty and tender. There was very good, not overly sweet slaw. The hash is an orange concoction (allegedly pig innards ground into mush) spread over rice. Yummy. There were hush puppies too. But the kicker was the sauce. It was a sweet mustard sauce. It was heavenly. All these years of barbecue sauce, I had no idea. It's mustard. I am still thinking about that plate.