So long, Bill's

I had my last barbecue sandwich at Bill's Virginia Barbecue the week before it closed. It was as good as the first one I ever tasted.

The Bill's restaurants closed their doors for good two weeks ago today -- another victim of the times and the economy. I'll miss Bill's, both for the food and for the memories.

I wasn't even born when the first Bill's opened in Richmond in 1931.

I had my first Bill's barbecue as a kid at the store near Boulevard and Broad. With it I had a fresh-water grape-limeade (no fizzy water for me), and a slice of chocolate pie. I was in the car with my family. The curb-service waitress ("Leave Lights On For Service") brought our orders on a tray that clipped onto the car window. It was so good that I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

To this day, I think Bill's made the best barbecue sandwich I have ever had, anywhere. The bun was slightly soppy with the juice from the minced pork. The cole slaw added the matchless sweet and tangy taste. The sauce from the little plastic cup, which I used liberally, made my mouth sting ever so slightly. Salty potato chips perfected the experience.

Bill's barbecue was unlike any other commercial barbecue I've ever had. It was not North Carolina style. And it definitely bore no resemblance to Texas barbecue. It was simple. With not much vinegar and no tomato in it, Bill's barbecue was primarily tender, juicy pork. The sauce, which always came in a small plastic cup on the side, did have a tomato base -- and a kick. I used to buy it by the bottle to use at home. (I once witnessed the explosion of a bottle of Bill's sauce, but that was because I left it sitting in the sun. When I opened it, whoosh! The gathering stopped while I cleaned up barbecue sauce.)

If I do go to heaven when I die, and if dead people still get hungry, I hope there's a Bill's up there. Surely, if there is a god, he will provide what we need.

I had an experience at the Bill's near Broad and Libbie that might have scarred me for life. I was 16, an age when life scars seem like they will take forever to heal but usually don't take that long at all.

I had just gotten my license to drive. My father agreed to let me take the family car -- which, let history record, was a blue 1956 Chevrolet station wagon about the size of the USS Enterprise -- to go on a Friday-night double date with my best friend. I forget who the girls were, but we went to a movie at the Byrd Theater and then decided to go to Bill's. When we got there, it seemed to us as though every other kid from Hermitage High School had the same idea. The lot was crowded with cars full of people we knew, calling out and visiting back and forth. I circled the lot several times before finding a spot at the back.

My new-driver mistake came when I tried to back into the space. I didn't have much choice. If the curb-service waitress were to see our "Lights On for Service," I had to be facing forward. I didn't do a very good job of it. In fact, I crunched the fender of the car next to me.

I had to get out of the car in front of our dates and everybody else in the lot and exchange information with the other driver, who turned out to be an older man who had been blamelessly eating barbecue with his wife.

The worst part was when I had to show him my license: I was such a new driver that it was the temporary version.

The story was all over school by Monday morning: Donnie Dale took his dad's car out on his first driving date and backed into another car at Bill's. It took about a semester to live that down.

One of the bonuses of moving into my present house 32 years ago was having a Bill's within about eight blocks. It was so easy to pop over there on a Sunday evening, pick up a barbecue sandwich (always minced, never sliced, with cole slaw and extra hot sauce) for a quick and easy dinner.

So many years. So many barbecues. Like the poet said, the song is ended, but the melody lingers on.

No dangling allowed

Comes now defendant Tracy Sears of WTVR TV before this session of the Language Court.

Defendant Sears is accused of breaking the English language law against dangling modifiers.

The court must observe that the law exists for good reason. Break it, and one can say something very different from what one means. As an aside, the court must observe that dangling modifiers often make people laugh.

The court draws from its lengthy experience to provide an example of a modifier that dangles outrageously: Turning blue, the chicken wing was stuck in my friend's throat.

Dangling modifiers switch meaning around because they cling tenaciously to the nearest noun that follows. In the example above, the modifier, "Turning blue," demands that it be allowed to grab hold of the closest noun, "chicken." But the court observes that it is not, in fact, the chicken that is turning blue. What the speaker should have said is, "My friend was turning blue because he had a chicken wing stuck in his throat."

The court in its summary judgment turns now to the accusation of battery of the language to be adjudicated in this case -- a risible example, to be sure. On Sept. 26, defendant Sears was voicing a story for the 6 p.m. newscast about Chesterfield school renovations. The record is undisputed on what she said:

Built in 1968 and last renovated 25 years ago, parent Sally Bowles knows Providence Middle School could use a makeover. [The court has changed the name to protect the innocent.]

Then defendant Sears repeated the breach an hour later on the 7 p.m. newscast.

Sally Bowles was not built in 1968. And the court takes judicial notice that whether Sally needs a 25-year makeover is between her and her fashion adviser.

What the defendant should have said was, "Parent Sally Bowles knows that Providence Middle School needs a makeover. The school was built in 1968 and was last renovated 25 years ago."

Pesky things, those dangling modifiers.

The court once had a professor in college who used to say that facts are far too important to be left in the hands of those who write and speak sloppily.

The Language Court verdict in this case: Guilty. The defendant will therefore study the following web page and write for the court a short essay summarizing what she learns: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/597/1/

Next case, please.

At last

Forty-six years ago I first tasted a mettwurst.

I bought it at a street-corner cart in Bitburg, Germany, in December 1966. It was served on a German roll on a flimsy paper plate.

It was dressed with hot mustard in the German style, and accompanied by a side of pommes frites (french fries) with mayonnaise. Yes, I learned to like mayonnaise or even honey on fries in Germany. (I also learned to like beer at basement temperature; it seems there's just more flavor when it's not icy cold. But I digress.)

I left Germany to come home three years later. Since then, the only time I have tasted mettwurst -- did I mention how much I loved mettwurst? -- was about 10 years ago, on a trip back to Bitburg. I ate my last mettwurst, again from a sidewalk stand and again with a side of fries with mayo.

What is mettwurst? I don't honestly know. I suspect it's a pork sausage, maybe with a little veal or beef thrown in, cured by smoke, with the magic being in the combination of spices. If I had to guess I'd say the spices include white pepper, paprika and a few others I can't identify. Grilled is the way I like them, although mettwurst can be cooked in any of the many ways you'd prepare, for example, Italian sausage or knockwurst.

I've never, ever, seen mettwurst on any menu or in any butcher shop or grocery store in the States. Never.

Until today.

Mettwurst might be available in cities with more of a German population, but not until now in Richmond. Believe me: I have asked around for 40 years.

Today I checked out the brand spanking new Fresh Market store in the old Verizon building on Nansemond Street just off of West Cary Street. There, in the butcher shop, was a tray of mettwurst. I immediately bought two of them for $1.29 apiece.

My mouth is watering. I'll have them for dinner tonight.

And if they're good, I'll be going back.

Often. Until I've had my fill of mettwurst.

I am curious about what other goodies this new store offers. Once I saw the mettwurst today, I didn't pay attention to anything else. I just clutched my treasure tightly and headed home.

Just imagine. I only had to wait for 40-some years.

UPDATE:  It's been about two weeks since I bought my first mettwurst at Fresh market. I cooked that first batch with cabbage and potatoes all in one pot (adding the mettwurst about 30 minutes before the cabbage and potatoes were done to keep the mettwurst from exploding in the pot). Delicious! I bought another batch and split them lengthwise, then fried them. I had them with buttered grits and scrambled eggs. Again, delicious!

Walter

Today is my closest and oldest friend Walter's birthday. He's 64.

We have known each other for almost half a century.

I called him today to wish him well. Even though he lives now with his husband in New England, we stay in close touch. We email each other nearly every day. We talk on the phone frequently.

In fact, today was the second day in a row that I called Walter.

Yesterday's call was also to wish him a happy birthday.

I've been off by a day in calling Walter to wish him well for decades. But not by design.

There is a history.

I was born on September 11. I have known for many, many years that Walter was born a week or so after I was (albeit in a different year). So, I inevitably reasoned each year, Walter must have been born on September 18.

Not so. He was actually born a week and one more day after my birthday. This thing about me wishing him well a day early got to be funny, but I was always secretly embarrassed.

Last year, I decided to end this egregious series of errors once and for all. I got tired of excusing my day-early call by saying "I just wanted to be the first to wish you ...." Besides, he wasn't buying it.

So I took a sticky note, wrote "Walter's birthday is 9/19" on it, and push-pinned it next to my computer screen. For a year now, I've been seeing that note every time I sit down at the computer.

But it didn't work. Not because I don't now know -- for certain -- what day Walter was born on. But because I actually believed that yesterday was the 19th. As I told Walter, once you're retired, the calendar is not top-of-mind.

As usual, he laughed heartily yesterday and forgave me. Maybe next year I'll get it right.

I don't see Walter as much as I would like. I am particularly enamored of the image above, which I made in Washington two years ago. We had taken to meeting up in D.C. for the Memorial Day weekend. The conversations always picked up just as though we had seen each other last week rather than last year.

I took the picture above on the way to meet Walter for lunch, I think -- or maybe it was for breakfast. I spotted him through the window of the restaurant before he saw me. I liked the composition, and I liked his pensive look. I fired off a couple of shots, one of which -- glory be! -- looked even better than I thought it would. I treasure this image of my friend.

It's true what they say: Old friends are the best. Walter already knows everything there is to know about me, and we can talk in a kind of verbal shorthand. There's no need for either of us to explain the backstory. We've either lived through it together or discussed it in excruciating detail.

So happy birthday, Walter, on today, Wednesday, September 19th.

I'd sing "Happy Birthday" to you, but I know you hate that as much as I do.