Texas. It's like a whole other country

Ok, so I am proud of my state. But I would say it is with good reason. The day after Easter, out came the BBQ pit. It never fails. I know that in a lot of places, Easter is a good marker to tell you when to start planting. Doesn't work here. Around here, I put the melons in the ground in February, the tomatoes in early March, and everything else goes in when i have the time. Easter is when the pit comes out.
Now you can tell a lot about a man by his BBQ pit. At least in Texas you can. On TV you may see someone with an apron on, holding a big fork, standing over a grill. That doesn't happen around here. Nope, not in the whole state of Texas. For one thing, no real Texan would be caught dead wearing an apron. My mother had an apron. I think the purpose of an apron is supposed to be if the thing starts to sizzle and spits on you, it wont burn you. It just seems kinda sissy to me. Another thing is, you never, ever use a fork on the meat. If you stick the meat with a fork, all the juice is going to come out. No piercing. And then of course, Texans don't use grills, they use pits. Grills are for yankees. And let me tell you, they take a lot of pride in their pits. I've even seen an old train engine converted over to a BBQ pit. It can, presumably, do a whole cow at once.
So anyway, out came the pit.
After it started cooling off outside, we piped it up and fired it up hot enough to burn out anything growin' in there. That's one of the important parts there. You see, a real Texan will never clean the grill part of the pit. you just take it off and bang it a few times to knock off any of the food that might be still stuck on there from the last time. Then, after using it a couple of dozen times, the grill becomes "seasoned" and you no longer have to use any spices in your cooking.
I've had neighbors come over to see what smelled so good cooking in there, and it was nothing but the pit itself. That's the main reason why you never use aluminum foil or a wire brush.
Unsanitary? not at all. before you cook on it next time, fire it up hot enough and kill everything off.

Overall, Texas is a great place to live. Especially in be spring time. Right now it's been "a/c in the day, heat at night" kind of weather. Gets up to about the mid-eighties and down to around 60. Yes, that's right, I run the heat if it goes down to the 60's. Actually, I run it in the 70's as well. But that's ok, because in Texas, energy is cheap. In the house I live in now, I almost never have an electric bill over a hundred dollars. Except in August, of course. But that's the dog days, and those are bad anywhere.