Distinctly Montana Magazine

OLD BROKE RANCHER BY GARY SHELTON L IKE SO MANY MONTANANS, I SPENT ALL SUMMER GRILLING. For most, that brings to mind idyllic images of Dad at the grill with a "Kiss the Cook" apron, flipping burgers like they're shrimps at Benihana, an appreciative audi- ence watching and clapping and shouting, "Wow, Gary, you're so amazing! You've achieved a perfect char!" At least that's what I think of when I think about grilling. In case that's what you're picturing too, let me disabuse you of the notion. For me, grilling is like wrestling a bag full of red- hot badgers. Usually, I end up with something charred black as pitch on a moonless night. Then, when you cut it open, you may as well have sliced open a watermelon. If I try to avoid either extreme, I end up with the other extreme. I've grilled chickens that were either pink and new as an infant mole rat, or burned into some sort of dinosaur fossil, but I've never, ever made a nice, juicy thigh or breast. Ever. And steaks? Don't get me started. Usually, they just end up looking like gnarled curlicues of road rubber. I've started thinking that maybe it's not my fault. This is a tempting possibility. Then whose fault is it? Well, it could be the grill... Now, it's definitely the grill. I bought this thing used about ten years ago, and all it's done since then is shorten my life and vex me. It's a propane grill, and I won't mention the manufacturer in case this gives them reason to sue me for libel, but suffice it to say that I'm fairly certain that this model was Soviet sur- plus. They probably found it in some ware- house in Uzbekistan, chipped the depleted uranium off it, painted a new logo on it, and sold it to me, the first trusting bozo they could find. One heating element barely works. It doesn't so much radiate actual heat as give off the general idea of heat. I think I could print out clip art of a cartoon fire and it would be almost as effective. Now that I think about it, that could explain the decade of near- raw chicken which I've been eating the way a prisoner of war plays Rus- sian roulette. The other two heating elements seem to have been permanently set on the "total annihilation" setting. I wig- gle the knob right and left, but all it does is nuke whatever I'm cooking. But my loathing of this grill goes way beyond simple culinary prob- lems. If that were all it is, I'd eat my raw chicken and carbonized zuc- chini without complaint. Well, I'd probably still complain, I suppose. But what made me murder the grill is that it relishes embarrassing me—like the time my wife caught me grilling my underwear and boots. Kills Kills HIS HIS GRILL! GRILL! T H E O L D B R O K E R A N C H E R 28 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 2 3 - 2 4

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