D.R. Bahlman: Medium

Aug 18, 2023

Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data.

D.R. Bahlman is a former Eagle reporter who lives in Williamstown.

WILLIAMSTOWN — Just beyond the west-facing patio of our house is a little grass-covered plot that we call "the golf tee" because it looks like one.

Measuring perhaps 10 by 12 feet, it's been the launching site of only a few golf balls over the years. Driving off the tee has been discouraged for decades; a concerned visitor pointed out that accidental ingestion of a golf ball might harm our neighbor's cows that graze in the meadow below.

For a long time, the golf tee was the summer home of a succession of charcoal-fueled barbecue grills. And no: The grotesque irony of the exchange of one existential threat to bovine safety for another, spookier one was not lost on the family. When the heavier and less portable gas grills were introduced, outdoor cooking operations were moved to another location. While still obliquely visible from the meadow, the grill is not in a direct line of sight, and the cows’ grazing schedule has long been out of sync with outdoor cooking times, which have become fewer and farther between anyway.

The annual media blitz that ushers in outdoor grilling season partnered with Father's Day caught my attention this year when I spotted a fine specimen of one of my favorite journalistic florae: "news you can use."

Monday's New York Times features an easy-to-read guide to outdoor grilling that offers sensible advice to grillers of all levels of experience. As I read it, I recalled scenes from my early experiences with outdoor cookery, all of which should bear a warning against recreating them at home or anywhere else.

Most "early" charcoal grills consisted of a metal disc with raised edges, standing on spindly legs and equipped with a grilling rack fitted to the interior diameter. Some models featured adjustment of the height of the rack above the fire.

It was with one of these grills that I conducted my early research, which focused largely on the first stage of a grilling session: ignition. My interest in this aspect of the "cookout" was shared, I’m sure, by many other teenaged and preteen boys.

By age 12, I’d been cleared to perform the fire-lighting ritual under supervision. By 14, I found myself in sole charge of ignition operations.

Bags of charcoal briquettes and countless cans of lighter fluid were consumed in my quest for the perfect grill fire, a hallmark of which was a generous bed of red-glowing white charcoal, devoid of any trace of petroleum taste or odor. Bringing the charcoal to this state relatively quickly was a closely pursued goal toward which hunger constantly urged me.

By my late teens, I’d foolishly promoted myself to membership in a griller's master class and thought nothing of performing fiery feats that would astonish — and sometimes terrify — onlookers.

As the air shimmered with fumes from the deluge of lighter fluid with which I’d marinated the charcoal, I would step back a few paces and, with a flourish, strike an Ohio Blue Tip "safety" match and with one smooth motion toss it into the grill tank.

A soul-satisfying sound, somewhere between a loud whoosh and a soft boom, would turn heads near and far.

Hearing a quavering "What was that?" from a startled adult was music to my ears. "Just lighting the fire. We’ll be eating in no time," was my reassuring reply, even as I marveled at how close my match work had come to blowing the grill to Ohio.

Some months later, the Weber grill featured in that experiment disappeared under unusual circumstances. A tornado touched down in a section of Williamstown that year, and the grill joined the "now you see it, now you don't" list.

My father jokingly theorized that it had "blown over to Greenfield."

Or maybe it was Ohio.

D.R. "Dusty" Bahlman may be reached at [email protected] or 413-441-4278.