My First Steak (WWE, 5/2/12, Len Maxwell)

Everyone had so much fun with this and I hate to burst so many bubbles because the real story is nothing more than everyday life.

I was eleven or twelve when I started taking more of a leadership role in the local YMCA. One summer I was invited to go to camp as a cabin counselor. I wanted that so much, but we just didn’t have the money. Then I found out that, as the cabin counselor, my parents didn’t have to pay anything and I was off on my first adventure.

The camp was a week long and I had ten seven and eight year-olds who I had to watch out for. There were three groups in the same campground: mine, an older group of boys from another YMCA, and a group of girls from the YWCA. I hadn’t yet figured out what girls were good for, so I ignored them.

I watched over my charges as we rode horses, paddled canoes, shot .22s, and hiked through the woods. The last night there was a steak fry for the counselors and… I was in trouble.

This prompt came from a story I posted in which I admitted I was pretty much a vegetarian for years. The only meat I’d eat was hot dogs and hamburgers but you couldn’t get me to eat anything else. That night, though, the camp leader threw a bunch of steaks on a grill over the campfire. All the other boys were salivating as they watched the meat cooking. I wasn’t sure.

“How do you want your steak?” the camp leader asked.

There were answers of, “rare,” “medium,” “medium rare,” and whatever else. For some reason I shouted out, “charcoaled.” The camp leader looked at me, chuckled, and said, “That’s how I like mine, too.”

Everyone else was eating before my steak came off the grill and I sat there looking at it. Okay, I can’t let it be known that I’m a wimp, so I cut into it, took a bite, and…

I was busy the next day getting the kids to clean the cabin, pack their things, and get down to the meeting house. After all the kids were gone, I took my stuff over to my parents’ car, tossed it into the trunk, and climbed into the back seat. As we were driving home, my mother said, “I want to make you a special dinner tonight. What would you like?”

When I said I wanted a grilled sirloin steak, she almost wrecked the car.

Since that time, sirloin is my steak of choice and, it has to be cooked. Well done. Charcoal on the outside and not a bit of pink inside. Ahhhhhhh!

* * *

In her response to this challenge,  Liz H. wrote:

“It’s as true today as it was yesterday. The first time is always the best…and the most memorable.”

I was going to use that quote at the beginning of this post, but it seemed better to close with it because that first steak was definitely the best and the most memorable. You can read her post here:

WWE, 4/25/12, Len Maxwell: A Series of Firsts