After taking the two days off last week to get some things done, I am getting the slate cleaned for a big back porch project. With the door in the kitchen opening up to a drop of several feet, it isn't really a good idea to leave things the way they are. Even so, there are always options in this sort of a thing.

As options go, I prefer the ones that are easiest to figure out. For instance, I can more easily build a design that I have built before. Since every porch I ever built is still standing today, I suppose my earlier designs were adequate to the need at hand.

In this case, as in many others, I have chosen to attach the deck to more supports and heavier lumber than needed. In fact, it will be built much better than the rest of my house, using that as a comparison standard.

Oh well, if the rest of the house falls in, I'll still be able to sit on the porch. There definitely is something about a porch that is very special. It is a good place to sit and enjoy a little peace and quiet. I can travel to the far reaches of tranquility and the only mode of transportation needed is a rocking chair.

It is also a very necessary place of summertime cooking. Since I removed the old porch, there is definitely a problem with trying to cook meats on the grill.

Even with the inconvenience of walking all the way around the house to get to the grill, I still set out to do it anyway the other day to cook up a piece of beef. I can't even eat beef that isn't stewed or grilled any more. The very thought of frying a perfectly good piece of beef gives me the willies.

As I walked around the house in my stylish around-the-house wear, which usually consists of whatever comfortable clothes I find first (the more holes, the better), I realized that I had forgotten the long lighter that I use to fire up the grill.

After I put the meat, seasonings and utensils on the little table areas beside the grill, I went back in for the lighter.

For some reason, the little electronic ignition things have never lasted me more than a few months on any grill I've ever owned. I usually end up lighting them with a match or one of those special butane lighters for the rest of the time I have them.

The grill I have now is a Frankenstein's monster of sorts, with a modified burner and burner cover and several repairs. In fact, The entire top once fell off of it when I lifted the lid and I used a drill and some southern ingenuity to put it back into working order. As with most grills, there really aren't very many moving parts. If the burner is in working order, the rest of it probably is also.

Anyway, as I walked back out to light it, I noticed some bees buzzing around the meat I had laid down on the side. They didn't seem interested in eating it, but rather annoyed that it was there. In my usual non-thinking way, I hefted the lid on the grill and found a surprise awaiting me.

A nice nest of yellow jackets had attached themselves to the underside of the grill's interior.

They were upset because the spices were blocking one of their exits— the hole where a rotisserie attachment normally would fit.

As I quickly dropped the lid, a nice little cloud of unhappy yellow jackets came outside the grill, buzzing around menacingly as I did the swat, scream and scamper. If you've never witnessed this triple-S maneuver, you've really missed a treat. Watching a loved one running away from bees is some of the best entertainment around, or so I've been told.

After the bees had a chance to calm down, I had a problem to decipher. I couldn't very well attack my own grill with poisonous sprays to eliminate the little rascals. So I decided to grill them. Soon after the sun had set, I turned on the gas inside the grill and lit it from underneath. Of course, I didn't stick around to see what happened.

After about 10 minutes or so, I returned to find the grill devoid of bees and, after a brief period of cleaning with the scraper, brush and a water hose, it was as good as new. Grilled bee wasn't all it had been cracked up to be, though. Most of them just fell through the little bars and were washed away by the hose after the grill cooled down. The others were too well done for my taste.

Bees not included, I told some folks the other day that grills were created with men in mind. You use them outside, where you don't worry if you spill a thing or three. The surface only needs to be scraped or brushed, everything else usually just burns away. If you really want some serious cleaning, the water hose can take care of that need. There is real, live fire inside it, which helps produce real, live smoke, which in turn helps produce smoke-flavored foods. It can also be useful in destroying colonies of angry bees.

The main thing usually cooked on a grill is meat. I know the truth in the statement, "Man cannot live by bread alone," but he could come a lot closer if he was given a big chunk of meat to throw on a hot fire. Come to think of it, even God liked his meat grilled in Old

Testament times. And, similar to my own tastes, he liked the fire roasted sheep better than the grilled vegetables. However, I like my meat a little less well done—I take mine medium—than they cooked it back then.

I saw a commercial for steak sauce in which a man sticks his tongue on the grill to lick up some spilled sauce. While sitting in the back of the ambulance with a bandage on his tongue, he asks his friends, "Is my steak OK?" While I don't use the sauce, the last line really says it all.

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