Out of the Frying Pan

House of the Rising Smoke

About fifty feet away from my grandfather’s house was a small building. He’d built it himself, about twenty feet wide, and twenty five feet long. On one side of the building, sticking out about seven feet, was what appeared to be a small tunnel made of stone, about two-and-a-half feet tall and two-and-a-half feet wide. The building itself, made of tongue-and-groove wooden planks, stood off the ground about the same height as the tunnel and was supported by the same type of stonework around all four sides.

The single door in the front of the building was made of tightly-fitted planks with a small staircase and landing, sheltered by an overhang that was supported on both sides with four-by-fours. The roof was made of the same corrugated metal as the barn roof, but was covered over with multiple layers of roll roofing. There were no windows in the building at all.

Grandpa, still carrying the bucket of hot coals, went first to the stone tunnel. Leaning against the stonework was an iron rod he’d fashioned himself, into a shape that resembled a shepherd’s crook. He knelt down and opened a small door at the end of the tunnel, reached in with that iron rod, hooked the handle of a large iron pot, and dragged it out into the open.

The coals in the pot were still smoking a bit. I watched as he started poking around the charred remains with the iron rod until we could both see a red glow. Grandpa then picked up the bucket he’d brought and dumped those hot coals on top.

There were two small galvanized metal trash cans by the side of the building and he asked me to hand him some hickory chips out of one of them, and some pine needles out of the other. He added a few handfuls of snow, explaining to me that the moisture would ensure that the chips and needles would smolder instead of burning up. Using the iron rod, he pushed the pot back into the tunnel and then closed the small door.

Though he was in his seventies, he was lithe and limber for his age. He got up off his knees with no trouble at all and walked around to the front of the building. Knocking the snow off the steps with his boot, my grandpa climbed to the landing and unlatched the door.

Inside the building, the smell of hickory filled the air. It wasn’t a dense smoke like you might think, no, more like a light fog. The floor was constructed with spaces between the boards to allow the smoke to enter the building. Hanging from the ceiling were all types of meat: pork, beef, and poultry. There was a table to the right with an array of meat-cutting utensils, all kept razor sharp. Grandpa pulled out his pocket knife and reached up and sliced a piece off of a nearby ham. He tasted it, then handed me a piece to try.

His eyebrows lifted in a silent question, so I said, “It tastes just right.”

He chuckled and said, “Tastes fine to me too.”

He lifted the ham off the hook, took it over to the table, and began to cut it into smaller portions. When he finished that, he chose and cut a slab of bacon, too. I am of the opinion that one can never have enough bacon.

Grandpa placed an old flour sack inside the coal bucket. As he was putting the cut up meat into the sack, he told me to go and pick a bird for Christmas dinner. My folks would be coming to Grandpa’s on Christmas morning, and would take us home that night, but we’d all be eating dinner together, so I knew I needed to find a pretty big bird.

I went over to the side where he kept the birds. There were turkeys, ducks, pheasants, quail, and geese. I remembered that he had told me he put the fresher kills towards the back, so I looked for a bird in the front because it would have been in the smokehouse longer. And there it was. It was a beauty, light golden brown in color, and at least a twenty pounder.

I hollered over to Grandpa, “I found it!”

He turned around to see me pointing up at a turkey that was hanging above my head, well out of my reach. Walking toward me and smiling, he said, “Good choice. That tom will be joining us for Christmas dinner.” He reached up, lifted the turkey off the hook and to my surprise, he handed it to me.

“You picked it out, you can carry it.”

Carrying it wasn’t that easy. It was all I could do, to hold it up high enough so it wouldn’t drag on the floor.

As we walked back to the house, my Grandpa paused for a moment, reached into his overalls and pulled out his pocket watch. Sounding a little surprised, he said, “Why, it’s just a quarter past two.” He looked up at the sky and sniffed the air, then looked at me, smiled, and said, “It’s a good day.” I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I was still holding that big turkey, so I didn’t ask.

As we came up the stairs to the porch, my grandpa set down his bucket and reached for the broom. I stood there, kinda dumbfounded, as I couldn’t exactly put that turkey down on the porch floor. Grandpa stomped his feet and told me to stomp mine. I noticed that Grandpa stomped his feet pretty hard, I think it was to let Lenny and Lanny know that we were about to come in.

While I stood there, my biceps straining, still holding the turkey, Grandpa broomed his feet and broomed mine for me, then paused again, sniffing the air. Now I had to ask.

“Why are you doing that, Grandpa?”

He just smiled and said, “Today will be a good day for a hunt.”