Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Paul "Barney" Barnett

I started thinking about my Dad’s cousin Barney last night while eating some Chuck Eye Steaks. First time I’ve tried this cut of meat and the fat in em reminded me of the great steaks Barney use to serve at his home in Mableton, Ga back in 1965 or 66 when I spent a big part of the summer with him and Betty Sue. I thought of him more as an Uncle and him and Dad were pretty close and in fact his wife Betty Sue was one of my Mom’s friends and neighbors when they were growing up. I have a picture of Dad, Barney and me eating watermelon in the kitchen of our apartment when I was 3 or 4 years old and they both looked an awful lot like they were consuming more than watermelon and having a good time. Seems like Barney gave me my first motorcycle ride when he still lived close in to town in Atlanta in a backyard garage apartment where the neighbors weren’t at all happy with his motorcycle coming in and out and would try to block him in with their cars. He would just go between them or around them in the grass just like he did that day and we were off. I didn’t get scared and I don’t think he was trying to scare me but he sure wasn’t letting no moss grown under us neither. Fast forward another 6 or so years and you would find Barney running his very own Standard Oil Co service station on the corner of the famed Peachtree and Collier right next to the big blue medical building. He also had a just bought a 3 bedroom 2 bath home with half basement in Mableton that we all thought was a mansion mainly because it even had a central intercom / radio system in it – WOW. Betty Sue wanted that basement to be a full and he told her that we all just needed to carry a bucket at a time out and it would be finished before she knew it. They let me stay the summer when I was 15 to work in the station and boy o boy what I didn’t learn that summer didn’t need learning anyhow. Do you remember when MINI SKIRTS first started? I believe all them gals around Peachtree Street started that fad and I sure was glad back then to have found myself smack dab in the middle of it all. My money came from washing and waxing cars and the wives and girlfriends of them doctors had a lot of washing and waxing and I even waxed a brand new red Jaguar for a lady one the was wearing one of them mini skirts. My head was spinning trying to look at the car and the gal. One day Barney daring ways about us both in trouble, as he wanted to take Betty Sue out on the town and to get an early start he took his cloths with him and cleaned up at the station and had her meet me and him at the road where you turn in to his house. He waited till she pulled up to tell me I was going to take that old red Rambler on home and I had driven a car a total of ONE other time at that point but, hey, at 15 you know I’m game. Problem was I had to back the car about a block on the sandy gravel road and just about fish tailed that old Rambler going backwards. When I got it stopped the first thing I could see was him looking at me laughing his head off and I knew all I could do was try it again and I did better and got on home without killing anyone. Barney loved steaks better than any man I ever knew and he always bought the best, usually thick T-Bones or Porterhouse. The first thing he would do would cut off a big piece of the fat off the side of one to start his meal and eat that first. Yep the fat tasted just like butter last night in the chuck eye steaks same as I remember from Barney's steaks. The most important thing about Barney though was that he was a damn good man and I will always remember him.

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