A No Rabbit Easter

We had a great Easter Sunday, without rabbit. I checked; we had some pig, some cow, some chicken, maybe a little turkey, beans, potato salad, coleslaw, onion rings, nachos, pickles, onions and sauce. Wore it out, is what we done. But there was no rabbit.

The completely and totally beloved Barbara went to church with some good friends and enjoyed herself immensely (I’m looking forward to going when I won’t feel like an Easter church meeting hypocrite). I met them all at the Blue Cactus restaurant afterwards for the BBQ, fellowship, and some phenomenally good bluegrass music. First, the restaurant review:

The Blue Cactus used to be a honky-tonk bar of the old school, which I visited often. Beer drinkin’ was required, floor-spittin’ allowed if you could find a clean spot, and of a Friday there was the usual country crowd; dressed up cowgirls and a few fellows with ironed jeans accompanied by lots of fellows with raggedy jeans and a beer-given certainty in their dancing skills. If you didn’t have some kind of a hat the folks would wide-eye you.
Today it’s a family kind of BBQ place, in the daytime at least. And the BBQ is good. The brisket needed a couple more hours in a moist smoker, but the ribs and chicken were outstanding. Sausage is sausage and that’s all I’m saying about that. The chicken fried steak was reported to be okay, but the gravy needed some work, mostly in the form of some cookin’ debris mixed in for flavor. You know, the Burnt Crunchy Bits, or BCB’s. A good gravy needs some BCB’s. The onion rings were good, but the grease should have been a little cooler to cook the onions more. Nachos were excellent.
The iced tea was adequate, and the water with lemon was real good. It had a bouquet of coyote, or maybe big dog off his leash and I think I detected just a hint of mesquite. The taste was pure recycled RiverWalk, and the lemon was tart with them big old brown spots on the skin. Matured lemons are the best. In the Sarge’s rating book, the Blue Cactus is a 3-visit Keeper just for the food and water. But the music made it an 8-visit Keeper.

I had never heard bluegrass music before. I was an over-50 world traveling been there done that bluegrass virgin. I loved it! When I was a kid in Alaska music was a serious hobby for me, even a potential vocation until I saw how hard it was to make a living and how rough that living could be. But I met some good guitar pickers of the 60’s hard rock variety. Saw Hendrix, the Kay brothers, saw that blind kid from Bethel, heard them all. And the Tennessee Valley Authority, five guys who were jamming bluegrass style yesterday were pretty much as good as any of them. Two of the best guitar pickers I ever heard in my life, a banjo player of world-class skill, and a great mandolin player. The bass-player was a young college fellow they had just called that day to fill in and who had never played the music before and he hung right in there, grinnin’ and fakin’ and doing it good. His Dad, Mom, and sister were sitting with us and were unmercifully hilarious, hootin’ and laughing and directing him like white-tails conductors when he sang backup on songs he’d never sung before. In my first hearing of bluegrass I believe I was real lucky to hear some experts. One of the visiting guitar players was a local doc, a chest-cutter who also happened to be the certified best guitar picker in Texas, and the normal guitar lead was just as good with a different style, more slides and minors, wandering off the page then walking everyone right back in. I heard about 8 layers to the music the first time I heard it. I’m going to listen to a lot more; I’m sure I missed a lot. Great, great music by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

I didn’t find a single egg, ‘cause nobody laid any. Close friends, good food, and great music. It was a day I’ll remember.