Billy and the Turkey
Shoot
A Thanksgiving Story
By Danny Tillman
The great cooking fire
If you stand at the Girvin Road-entrance-to-Mary's-drive and look east across the road (the house being behind you), you can see only pine trees and palmettos--no man-made structures whatsoever-- that seem to go on forever toward Atlantic Beach & Ocean & Mayport and the Navy base there (as opposed to the Jacksonville Naval base, which is also on the St, John's River, but west & south of you). Now, turn around & face Aunt Mary's house (the forever pine trees & palmettos are now behind you): A mixed forest of mostly different kinds of oaks, etc. is behind--west of--Uncle Rufus' and Aunt Mary's white house. Pine woods are to your right, which is north. Looking south again, toward your left, you can see Mr. Schuller's house about 100 yards away with only a few trees (if any--can't remember what kind) in between. Looking west again (straight ahead), imagine you can see Panama City, Eglin AFB, Pensacola-- & the Alabama state line about 370 miles away, at the western end of Florida's long horizontal Panhandle. Now, see there on Mary's expansive green-grass front lawn: the tables are arranged around its borders. Soon after arriving that morning, the members of the gun club, in agreement with Uncle Rufus, began preparing a fire pit--located in the central area of the front yard-- which would be fashioned to act as a giant pressure cooker that would steam to perfection, potatoes, carrots, green beans & corn on the cob. Except for the corn on the cob, Aunt Mary was wont to prepare the same combination in her own pressure cooker.
When the meal was finished cooking, she would cut up the potatoes & carrots-- can't remember if she did the same to the beans, or left them whole-- then add butter, salt & pepper, & you couldn't ask for a more delicious-melt-in-your-mouth lunch than that! What I'm gonna call "The Massive Pit & Produce Project (MPPP)" introduced above, is hereby performed as follows:
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My 50
year old #3 wash tub
1. Since food items are to be placed in 2 brand new #3 wash tubs, these now empty tubs are set touching each other where hole is to be dug.
2. Four 1-foot long stakes driven in--till each protrudes 4 inches out of ground--to form rectangle enclosing tubs, but leaving enough border in which rocks to be stacked can form walls along the two longer sides of pit.
3. Stakes above are placed far enough out from tubs so as not to hamper man digging hole.
4. String attached to all 4 stakes (to form "tic-tac-toe"-type pattern) to show shovel man outline of rectangle (central "square" of "t-t-t") in which to dig hole.
5. Depth of hole to be dug = depth of tub plus depth of layer of rocks beneath tubs plus allowing for additional 1-foot for layer of dirt atop lid on tubs.
6. Before starting dig: Turf carefully removed from rectangle in manageable sections so as to remain undamaged for replacement after hole refilled later in day.
7. As pit is dug, shoveled-out dirt is piled up to form neat dikes along longer sides of rectangle (construction of said dikes being tended to by a 2nd shoveler who remains on grass while his counterpart--the "hole-digger" digs himself steadily deeper); shorter sides of pit should be sloped like ramps (highest points of ramps will be at grass level, 2 feet farther out than the strings that describe the short sides of rectangle; lowest points of ramps will be at dirt level at the bottom of the pit, exactly even with the strings above that describe the short sides of rectangle) so sufficient oxygen reaches base of fire to keep it burning well (the ramps also make it a tad easier for the poor shovel man to be pulled out of the hole later).
8. Digging of hole complete:
a. string untied from stakes;
b. string rolled back up on string stick;
c. shovel man pulled out of hole;
d. stakes pulled up;
e. stakes & string put away;
f. shovels placed vertically upright in hole for later use.
9. Rocks are wheel-barrowed in & dumped in pit.
10. Rock floor & walls are built (rock walls only along 2 longer sides of pit).
11. Wood arranged & fire lit & kept burning-- a roaring "white man's fire" as Indians jokingly call it-- to heat up rocks for 2 hours.
12. Pre-heated water to depth of 6 inches poured into tubs.
13. Produce carefully placed & arranged into tubs in equal amounts in following order:
a. whole, shucked ears of corn on the cob being distributed evenly in bottoms of both tubs;
b. whole potatoes being distributed evenly on top of corn in both tubs;
c. whole carrots being distributed evenly on top of potatoes in both tubs;
d. whole green beans being distributed evenly on top of carrots in both tubs.
14. Tubs containing food lowered into "furnace."
15. Tubs covered by improvised sheet-metal "lid" which has same dimensions of rectangle & which is equipped with two 1-inch x 3-foot "steam-vent" pipes welded to its upper surface--one pipe centered over each tub.[1]
16. "Ramps" at shorter dimensions of rectangle should now be filled in with dirt to prevent excess heat-escape from the "buried pressure cooker."
17. 1 foot of soil shoveled onto lid.
18. Fire built on this soil & kept going till about half hour before lunch time.
Two semi-circles of chairs--spaces between the two allowing fire tenders access-- facing outwards were positioned around the fire & early on useful for many of the guests who sat and rested & asked to keep children away from that area. Later, the chairs will hold different personages, as you will soon see.
[1]m.w.: Let us just, with all due diligence & supplication, earnestly hope & pleadingly pray, that the 1-inch x 3-foot steam-vent pipes, your sheet metal lid & the 1 foot of dirt holding it down, are all up to specs & this "subterranean soup kettle" doesn't blow; but if it does, I do so hope that--instead of a sheet-metal-lid lift-off into low-earth orbit--that the explosion only results in Aunt Mary's front yard becoming the location of the latest underground nuclear test site in the nation.