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FROM THE BACKWOODS PEW
Gas Station Cuisine Off the beaten path, never seeming to make it into the fancy magazines that advertise the cultural heritage and antiquity of the South is the rural gas station. Usually giving optional meanings to the term “gas station,” these remote outposts of culinary Antill delight and deceptions are the oasis that appears on the shimmering horizon, beckoning to the hungry forester. Most timberland tracts in the South are still out in the “sticks.” Those tracts that were close to town have already been paved and changed into a Walmart. The forester, having spent all morning in the woods cruising timber, marking boundary lines, slapping the water trying to catch a rogue beaver, or practicing his dance moves on top of a ground bees’ nest, finds a break in his schedule and an opportunity to test out the air conditioning in his truck. Now comes lunch and a chance to not be in the woods. Brown-bagging it may be an option at times, but after a morning of slapping, stinging, and staring at trees, you need a break. Thus, the hunt for lunch begins. Buffets come in a variety of styles and locations. From the top of a general store to the basement of the local
meeting house, they are nestled and tucked into the landscape so that only a trained eye can find them. I look for DOT trucks. They are a dead give-a-way. These buffets come with pork barbecue, beans, boiled potatoes, field peas, corn bread, pork chops, and of course fried chicken. Others boast local favorites like quail and rice. The eating is tremendous and all thoughts of what is waiting for you in the swamp during the afternoon are erased. After the banana pudding, you wish for a nice shade tree to park under with the AC on low, and an hour or so to snooze the day away. But alas, duty calls, the swamp beckons, and it is back to the woods. Your step is slower perhaps for a time, as you sweat away that second plate, but the memories linger on. Even marking boundary lines is fun if a classy buffet can be slipped into the daily schedule. However, there are times when the buffet cannot be found or the wallet is not in compliance. Thus, the gas station steps up to provide sustenance for the hungry forester. Like the buffet, here the selection is stellar with cans of unidentified meat and poultry by-products, left over from the previ-
ous century, lining the shelves. Little sausages, dropped off by ancient explorers from the last century, and of course beans and wieners in a variety of special sauces anxiously await your choice. Plastic utensils are stored in an old coffee can, yours for the taking. A variety of potato chips, that you have never seen advertised on Super Bowl Sunday, are stuffed into racks by the door. Usually there is a little tilt-a-whirl machine loaded with hot dogs. You select your wiener with a sense of foreboding. Your day, your night even, may quickly change. Nothing will be said here about the giant jars of pickles, for fear of causing some folks to have flashbacks. Were it not for the Little Debbie Snack Cakes, peanut butter nabs, and soft drinks, lunch at the gas station would be brutal! Here’s how King David saw it: Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. —Psalm 34:8-10 Do you long for a life of peace, one where despite the circumstances, you are content; and where even in times of desperation, you still have an inner joy and strength? There is an old saying, “You are what you eat.” (I
guess that means I need a bonnet and a medical degree because Little Debbie Snack Cakes and Dr. Peppers are a mainstay of my diet.) To have a life with the peace that only God can give, you need to eat right, spiritually speaking. Does fried chicken or banana pudding put a smile on your face? God will too! Trust in him; let him go beside you in the swamp, where the heat and exertion of the day will leave you tired and hungry. Turn to him and he will fill you with peace, with contentment, and with joy. While others who seek to find it on their own will fail; you will not, for God is faithful. The call to come to God and to let him guide you, like a dinner bell, is being sounded across the swamp. He offers peace. He offers to fill the aching void in your life and mine; and only he can fill it. We have to eat; it is the way we were created. What appeals to you today, the buffet or the gas station? It’s your soul that needs filling. Feed it with the Word of God. It promises growth beyond our ability to understand. To be fed by God’s Word is to be able to cling to his promises, to his strength. To fill yourself with the offerings of this world, like eating junk food at the gas station of life, will cause you to wake up one day when crisis and concern dominate your calendar and the compass leads deep into the swamp; only to find you neither have the spiritual health nor energy to survive. If that happens just as sure as you can be haunted by a giant jar of pickles you will look back and wish you had eaten better; that there would have been more buffets at God’s table and less eating in the world’s gas station. Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as new born babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. —1 Peter 2:1-3 Excerpted from Trees, Traps, and Truths Find it at onatreeforestry.com Brad Antill has been a forester in the woods and swamps of the Southeast Coastal Plain for over 30 years. Besides being a forester, he is also an ordained minister of the Gospel, and together they combine as his two passions. He and his wife Cindy created On-A-Tree Forestry as a way of sharing his unique views of the gospel story. They share the fingerprints of God that are revealed every day in those same woods and swamps. Brad is a graduate of The Ohio State University forestry program, and a registered forester in North Carolina and West Virginia.
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OCTOBER 2020 l Southern Loggin’ Times
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