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The Rib Monster

    Hey, everyone. The other day I was craving some barbecue ribs. I stopped in a place called Logan's Roadhouse. It's a chain, here in the Southeast U.S. and in most of them, the food is very good.
    The place is made to give the look and feel of a 1950's style roadhouse, like on Route 66 when it was the main East-West road. Really, there were similar places in rural areas all over. To give you an idea of the ambience, there are bare wood floors, wood booths, jukebox stuffed with country rock and a lot of old beer and menu signs on the wall.
    The greeter's table is actually an old coca-cola machine with the flat sliding doors on top, about waist high.
    They have these tin buckets on the tables, filled with peanuts. The intention is for you to eat the peanuts and toss the shells in the floor, which I cannot do. I'm a neat person and can't stand a slob. I can't make myself throw stuff in the floor. I will say that I attacked those ribs in such a way that it looked like there had been a zombie battle around my booth. (Like in Rage)
    To amuse myself until Patrick Swayze showed up, I had a petite, low calorie meal. Here's the recipe. A huge salad with thick ranch dressing, hot yeast rolls (incredible), barbecue pork ribs with Cajun spice, a baked potato groaning with the weight of butter, sour cream and cheese and a platter of hot wings. I washed it down with a quart of iced tea. They serve mixed drinks and a nice variety of beers but I never drink and drive.
    Let me tell you about the hot wings. There are several varieties on this sample platter but the ones I love are parmesian garlic. They melt cheese all over the little dudes and sprinkle them with garlic. I've been told they will make you lose weight but I suspect this is an urban legend. They are so good that you wouldn't believe it.
    After pecking at my food, (ha, ha) I sat back and watched a little baseball on the wall-mounted TV. The waitress came by and said, "Aren't you that famous writer, CE Wills? You have barbecue sauce in your beard."
"Thanks," I said.
     She smiled. "Shows up good against the white."
    From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.

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