Barbecue with Dad: Early Embers to The Crazy Pig

[00:00:02] What you want, when you want it, where you want it. This is The MESH. Barbecue Summer is here! Whether you're at home or going to the beach, lake, mountains, or city, be sure to support your local barbecue businesses. From the butcher shops to the pitmasters in food trucks, pop-ups, and neighborhood joints, for dine-in or catering,

[00:00:28] the Carolina Barbecue Festival reminds you to visit your locally owned businesses for barbecue summer. Visit carolinabbqfest.org for a list of local pitmasters that'll get you started. And while you're at carolinabbqfest.org, be sure to sign up and stay connected. You'll get all the latest details on upcoming events, and coming soon, official dates for the 2027 Carolina Barbecue Festival.

[00:00:53] Until then, be sure to enjoy Barbecue Summer with your locally owned barbecue businesses. Takeout from The Crazy Pig in Davidson wasn't the initial plan. Originally, I was charting out a path for Mack's Speed Shop on Lake Norman with Midwood Spot and Burtdale Village was on standby.

[00:01:18] But when my father finished with his bank activities in Cornelius, I could tell he was getting tired. Getting up and down, it seemed like it was getting harder every time we worked to transfer him in and out of the car. I knew going into a restaurant might not be in our best interest, but still, I laid out the three closest options anyway. I let him decide that he wanted to get something for carryout ahead of an hour-long car ride home.

[00:01:45] He decided that until he got home, he didn't want to have to go through another effort to stand up and sit down. All that's required for him to move from the car seat to a motor chair he's been in almost constantly the past couple years. I even let him turn down a suggestion to hit a local hickory haunt at the end of our return trip. No, he wanted to try something new. And I think he wanted to try something new because I wanted to try something new.

[00:02:13] Something neither of us had sampled across the diverse menu of Carolina Barbecue. So we hit The Crazy Pig about midday on a barbecue Friday. It wasn't crowded, but it was busy enough. A quick look at the menu in the car led to some standard decisions for both of us. Pulled pork sandwiches. For him, the Crazy Pig. The signature sandwich of pork on a toasted bun with slaw and pickles. For me, I got the sliders. Pulled pork and chicken.

[00:02:41] For the sides, baked beans, hush puppies. Also filled a few takeaway containers with each of the Crazy Pig sauces. After I made the order while we waited, the Crazy Pig's owner, Robert McCrary, was there. He explained all the we are open signs that we started to spot around Davidson's downtown. It seems road improvements are creating a big change to traffic patterns. They're adding a roundabout and really making a mess on Main Street. A big part of that is supposed to wrap up later this summer.

[00:03:11] But right now, the construction's turning a lot of potential patrons away from downtown businesses, including the Crazy Pig, which has been open there for about six years. Robert, understandably, not thrilled about the construction. So be sure and visit the Crazy Pig. Visit them in person and visit him on Instagram. Robert regularly posts some of his opinions about barbecue, the restaurant business and life in general. He's a pretty good follower. Give him a shot.

[00:03:37] In fact, Robert and his family have been running restaurants around Lake Norman for about 20 years. His spot in Davidson is really cool, except for that whole traffic and construction thing going on right now. As you can see on the website, they've got a little stage area. They could do some live music out there. Really nice spot in the heart of Davidson. Once they get that construction done, get that cleaned up, you want to get back in there.

[00:03:59] And I learned quickly the food there is solid, too, even though I'll say it's a little hard to judge in a fair way because I ate it in hickory an hour later. That's because once we got back in the car with the styrofoam clamshells, one look at those hulking meat sandwiches, my dad and I knew it was pointless to try and eat while motoring along I-77 and I-40, the raceways that they are.

[00:04:26] So instead, we waited until we could get into his assisted living facility, get him comfortable and enjoy a late lunch together. I didn't realize it'd be our last. Albert Willard died early in the morning on May 25th after a few weeks of rapidly declining health. He was 84. We learned that maybe, unfortunately, he'd not been enjoying his food so much.

[00:04:50] Instead, when he ate, he was aspirating some of that food that he was trying to swallow. After he entered the hospital, we found out his epiglottis, that little flap of cartilage in your throat that keeps food and saliva from going down in your windpipes and lungs. It had failed for my father. Infection in his lungs was causing pneumonia, adding additional stress to a pulmonary system that was already pretty worn out following a heart attack, bypass surgery years ago and decades on a pacemaker.

[00:05:19] The food he was eating was hurting him. The food he spent a lifetime loving from the freshest vegetables you could find on his family's dirt farm and Alabama's black belt and the London broiled steaks. He's so perfectly cooked to anchor a plate with mom's beloved mashed potatoes.

[00:05:37] For many years late in their lives, my dad did most of the cooking always closely tuned to his heart conscious spice rack and all of it was prepared in spite of declining mobility around his kitchen and patio. You could even see his passion in the food and the cooking and the simple meals that he tried to concoct during the past few months after he smuggled an air fryer into his apartment contraband in this location.

[00:06:04] Instead, he prepared alternatives with that air fryer to the nightly institutional menu cooking up thin pork chops for breakfast or chicken breast in the evening when he didn't like whatever they were serving. I will say those methods that he used in the final days were a long way from the charcoal path that he set me on as a child. It was a path that started with chicken halves cooked over hot coals, generously mopped with his own special concoction.

[00:06:31] Together on the back patio cooking food over flame, we started a journey that brought us here. I'm Chigger Willard. You're listening to the Low & Slow Barbecue Show on the Mesh.TV network of podcasts. And today, for just a few more minutes, I want to talk about my dad. Before I do that, a thank you to our Low and Slow Barbecue Season sponsor, the Carolina Barbecue Festival. Visit carolinabbqfest.org.

[00:06:57] Sign up to stay connected with all the latest barbecue event happenings around the Carolinas. And at carolinabbqfest.org, look for the list of our pitmasters. Use that as your starting point for your local barbecue summer 2026. All summer long, we hope you'll visit the locally owned businesses in your communities. When you visit the beach, the lake, the city, or the mountains on a trip, look for a local barbecue restaurant for dine-in, carry-out, or catering.

[00:07:25] You'll get good quality food and support a local business in the process. I can remember a lot of meals with my dad at local barbecue restaurants around Birmingham and elsewhere in Alabama. Golden Rule, who we talked about, was a regular stop. Right in our Rocky Ridge neighborhood, it was a smaller operation, Gus's Barbecue. Elsewhere, it was Bob Sykes or Ollie's on Green Springs, Johnny Ray's, Lock and Me's.

[00:07:48] They were both near his various work offices in Vestavia and Hoover, although he took his lunch from home on most days when he'd be in the office. Still, during travels around the South in his work, I know he became a connoisseur of the various local eating establishments. And knowing his love to smoke and grill meats of all shapes and sizes, I'm sure a lot of his work trips included barbecue stops. My dad was an electrical engineer, and that work took him all across the South, usually by road.

[00:08:16] Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1940s, he grew up in Hale County, the only child working on his family's dairy and vegetable farm. At the time, I can only imagine Hale County as one of the most rural, poorest places you can find in Alabama. Look it up on the map. There's only about 14,000 people there now, about 40 miles south of Tuscaloosa. Yet, despite the poverty and the rural nature, somehow his family made things work.

[00:08:43] They sent him to the University of Alabama, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and began a 50-year professional career. My dad started with Alabama Power Company. A few years later, jumped into the consulting engineering game, working for Birmingham Metro firms on projects throughout the Southeast.

[00:09:03] He retired in 2023 as a partner in Ray Engineering Group, where he dedicated 30 years to designing electrical distribution, lighting, and auxiliary services for hospitals and long-term care facilities. Let's say that again. Long-term care facilities. Large municipal water and wastewater facilities, schools, and state parks. He was part of the electrical design for what was once the tallest building in all of Birmingham.

[00:09:30] He worked with Army Corps of Engineers on the New Orleans levees after Hurricane Katrina. And there were countless other jobs. They'll never carry his name, but they'll serve people for generations. My dad proudly maintained engineering certification in Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee. In fact, completing required professional education courses every year through 2025, just a few months ago. That's leaving a mark.

[00:09:58] That was never really dad's goal. He was forever focused on making a positive contribution, on staying active, never wasting a minute in a world increasingly attached to our electronic devices. But his priority above all of that, he dedicated his life to serving his God and providing for his family. In his last breath, he finally admitted to me that if he could no longer serve God, he was ready to be with him.

[00:10:28] He joins his wife of 54 years who died in 2023, my mother. They leave behind myself and my sister. We have three boys between us and her sons in North Texas with their family. The land of Texas smoke meats. Yes, my nephew has it pretty good in a Texas barbecue standpoint. But of course, me and my two boys have it better here in the Carolinas where barbecue traditions run so much deeper.

[00:10:54] Plus, we're in close proximity to all our friends in Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee. Places where we can enjoy the breadth and width of the South's barbecue spectrum. In Texas, the only thing you're close to is Texas. That's all well and good. If you like brisket and dino ribs, sausages, all those good Texas southern sides smoked over mesquite or post oak or I don't know what. I had something outside Dallas that tasted like a pine tree. Some of that you can keep. No pine tree for me.

[00:11:24] While my dad loved to eat, he also loved to cook. He loved to experiment in the kitchen, try different methods. His live fire cooking ran the gamut from fresh caught trout at streamside campsites to charcoal grills to backyard gassers, electric smokers, pellet cookers. In my childhood home, sometime in the mid and 70s, they built a cinder block wall. And as part of that, they built a big pit perfect for cooking over. Even had a big wire grate. I only ever saw it rusted.

[00:11:54] Don't even know if they cooked on it after my sister and I came into their world and their lives. But that's understanding. Two new kids, focus goes elsewhere. It goes to something more convenient, the charcoal. Charcoal on the grill and smaller things. And probably no surprise that I caught the barbecue bug from him. Outside that same childhood home, I cooked my first chicken over charcoal. First, I had to serve a shoe chef with him, his assistant. He was running the show.

[00:12:24] I did the little things, mopping the chicken every time he opened the thing for a turn. Or maybe I poked the fire a little bit or adjusted the thing or just kind of watched him buy. That chicken mop that he had was his own special twist on a recipe from the Texas king of barbecue. Interesting new connection. That's Walter Jetton. If you didn't know, look him up. He hosted cookouts for President Lyndon Johnson back in the day. So you could understand the popularity of his cookbooks. And still, my dad used his sauce anyway.

[00:12:54] Soon enough, after serving as an assistant for a while, I got to take over the job. In the early going, he was always there carefully watching, making sure I didn't get sideways with the fire or forget to turn the birds every six or seven minutes. Eventually, the job became mostly mine. And at least until I got busy in high school and college and moved on out of the way of the fire again. Even when I was cooking it up in his place, he tried to keep busy, always kind of giving me the side eye,

[00:13:22] maybe monitoring a little bit, maybe a little bit of jealousy. I think he was proud of what he created in a backyard pit master. But I also think maybe he missed cooking himself. Maybe he missed the chance to be by the fire. Maybe he missed the recipes for that. I know he missed all that when he moved to Hickory, where we hosted him for cookouts here, picnics, holiday meals with pulled pork, smoked salmon, chicken. He always refused our leftovers of pulled pork.

[00:13:50] But I think he enjoyed having it in his little fridge at his apartment. But just as anyone who's ever picked up a set of tongs or rubbed a piece of meat knows, eating the food is only part of the fun. The cooking and the fire and the work, all the work, that's where you find satisfaction. So when he retired and moved to Hickory, he couldn't really cook. My dad still kept busy, became an active part of the community in his assisted living facility.

[00:14:17] He initiated a weekly Bible study class, supported the gardening group. He was really a champion for improvements that would benefit all of his neighbors. I dragged him along to help out my own gardening charity, Hickory Greenway Harvest. A crop of beets he planted this year, it struggled a little bit. I think we had some bunk seeds there or something. They failed. But still, there's beets growing down there in our garden at the salt block. And sometime later this month, we'll harvest it and deliver it over to Hickory Soup Kitchen.

[00:14:45] Like barbecue, gardening, another thing my dad and mom passed along to me. They planted a garden of some kind for every year that I can remember. And like barbecue and live fire cooking, that's a tradition I'm trying to carry on and pass along to my kids. That'd be an entirely different podcast than the gardening and passing to kids. In fact, I could probably do a different podcast around everything my dad did in his 84 years. At least some of the things I knew about.

[00:15:13] In times in his life, he was a volunteer firefighter, ambulance driver, soccer coach, fisherman, photographer. He developed his own prints. He was a camper, tent camper, traveler, amateur pit master, marksman, and a band parent. He sifted through rocks and polished semi-precious gems that we gathered up in the creeks of North Carolina. He ultimately took responsibility for a small menagerie of animals that lived with us. All those dogs and cats over the years.

[00:15:42] Dad took care of them. My dad traveled to more than 24 states, Mexico, Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland. He was an early adopter of home computing. I remember a Commodore 64 that he would program things on in those early days. He enjoyed studying his Bible, researching genealogy, cooking, woodcrafting, and donating to charitable causes focused on improving the lives of others. I'm one of those lives, and I'm grateful.

[00:16:11] And that is the final word for this week. You've been listening to the Low and Slow Barbecue Show, sponsored by Carolina Barbecue Festival. Barbecue summer is here. Whether you head to the beach, the lake, the mountains, or the city, be sure to visit your local barbecue business this summer. CarolinaBabyQFest.org has a list of local pit masters that will help you get started.

[00:16:37] While you're there, sign up to stay connected, and you'll be the first to know the dates for the upcoming Pig Picking and the 2027 Carolina Barbecue Festival. To our audience, thank you for listening to the Low and Slow Barbecue Show. If you like what you hear, share our podcast with your food-loving friends. Please subscribe and give us a five-star rating on your favorite string.

[00:16:58] You can also visit LowSlowBBQShow.com to find other podcast interviews with our other Carolina Barbecue pit masters that will be serving you for the best local barbecue all summer long. You'll see our blog. One of those blogs there is My Early Chicken Beginnings. It talks a little bit about my dad and that mop, and you can get Walter Jetton's recipe there. Our blog also has other barbecue news and festival and event details.

[00:17:22] If you sign up to our weekly newsletter, we'll deliver the latest Carolina barbecue news most Tuesdays. Sign up for the newsletter today at LowSlowBBQShow.com. The Low and Slow Barbecue Show is proud to be part of the Mesh.TV network, a podcast. That's where Andrew Moose is the producer of our podcast and so many others on the Mesh network. Find them all at TheMesh.TV.

[00:17:45] That's where you'll also find the Low and Slow Barbecue Show, where I'm your host, Chigger Willard, reminding you that for the best barbecue and the best barbecue podcast, make it low and slow. You've been listening to The Mesh, an online media network of shows and programs ranging from business to arts, sports to entertainment, music to community.

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