backyard cookouts – Lee Duigon

Memory Lane: Family Cookouts

leeduigon(patty)July 21, 2024

Ours was a very close-knit family, and summer was the season for our backyard cookouts. My aunts showed slides of their most recent travels, and my father and his kid brother, Uncle Ferdie, took my brother and me to the playground next door to play horseshoes.

Gee, I miss that! I’ve just realized I am now the oldest living member of my family: no one left with whom to play horseshoes. No more hamburgers on the grill. Grandpa John and his brother Jacob, visiting from Holland, used to treat us to harmonica concerts. I still have my harmonica, but no one to chime in with the mandolin.

The heat of the summer didn’t seem to matter, back then: we were all having too good a time to notice. Oh, the clinking and the ringing of the horseshoes on the metal stake!

But I’m sure there’ll be some of that in Heaven.

Invitation to Readers: C’mon Over!

leeduigon(patty)August 25, 2019

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Look, I don’t want to cover any nooze today, I refuse to post it. Besides, it’s a beautiful late-summer day, a gorgeous Sabbath morning, the enervating heat is gone–

So I’m inviting you to a backyard summer cookout, regular readers and newbies alike. Since I don’t actually have a back yard, or a grill, and the whole thing must take place in the realm of our imaginations… come one, come all! Room for everybody!

We’ll have a great time. Hot dogs, hamburgers, chops of your choice. Root beer, regular beer, iced tea. Horseshoes on the playground, just next door. Badminton on the lawn. A limitless supply of good conversation. Yea, forsooth, cigars for everyone who wants one! Our cats and dogs will play together. We could even play croquet. Let fellowship abound.

I’m going to imagine this and take delight in it. You’re all invited to do the same.

Memory Lane: The Family Cookout

leeduigon(patty)May 20, 2017

Image result for Men Playing Horseshoes

On many a Sunday in the summer, my father liked to hold a family cookout in the back yard. So early in the morning, I’d run over to the playground and fetch some fine sand for the coals to rest on.

If Uncle Ferdie came, as he usually did, we’d break out the horseshoes and have a few games, him, my father, my brother, and me. There’s nothing like the clang of horseshoes on a summer day. If Uncle Bernie came, he’d do some simple magic tricks that always wowed me. I never could figure out how he pulled off one of his fingers and stuck it back on, good as new. When he finally taught me how to do it, I had a lot of fun blowing the minds of the younger kids in the neighborhood.

When my aunts came, they usually brought slides of their latest visit to some exotic clime–places like Yucatan, Uganda, Iceland, or Australia. My Dutch step-grandfather, John, played old Dutch tunes on his harmonica. Grandpa reminisced about the misdeeds of Woodrow Wilson.

And then came the hot dogs and the hamburgers, which always tasted so much better, off the grill. I enjoyed watching the charcoal briquets catch fire briefly, then settle down to glowing redly and sputtering when fat dripped on them. A simple feast, but highly satisfying.

If only we could do it all again…