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Rib king begins reign in Pasco

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By STEVE OTTO Steve Otto

sotto@tampatrib.com sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: May 27, 2009

The invitation from Carl Stone came about a year ago. Stone lives in Wesley Chapel in Pasco County. After a few follow-up messages I began to think he owned Wesley Chapel.

He was inviting me to help judge his annual rib contest in his backyard. It would be a friendly get-together, he promised early on, just him and a few of the neighbors. But as the year progressed I began to get e-mails with rules and strict guidelines. A couple of weeks out, he said there would be more than 30 families cooking and if I couldn't handle it to stay home.

We showed up early in the afternoon. For you urbanites like me, Stone's backyard is about the size of one of your city blocks. There were grills everywhere, a few small grills like you might have, but mostly big honkers with lots of smoke rolling out. I wasn't 30 seconds into the yard before someone had given me a cup of boiled peanuts and some cold beer. Life was going to be good that day, as the different teams shared their secrets with me over some cold concoctions they had brought along.

I guess there are still a few places around our sprawling region where neighbors get together, but I'm not sure how many come together like this Wesley Chapel crowd, with 35 families all armed to the gills, and swap whoppers and become one family.

The barbecue judging was strict and almost fair. The winner - Roger Moses - was thought to be an upset victor, but some of you old-timers might remember Moses as an owner of the old Silver Ring and its great Cuban sandwiches.

So for a year, or at least for that evening, as a bonfire crackled into the night, Roger Moses is the barbecue king of Pasco County and everywhere else, as far as I can imagine.

Floridians

A number of you have followed up on last week's column listing some of the ways you can tell you are a Floridian, Here are a couple of your suggestions:

Laura Lewis of Lutz says Floridians - especially Tampans - know that Lutz rhymes with boots and definitely doesn't go with putz.

Sandy Aless sent in some of my favorites:

•You are unashamed that Home Shopping Network is one of your local TV stations.

•You call those surprise nighttime creatures "palmetto bugs" instead of cockroaches.

•You enjoy a cold soda while the morning coffee is brewing.

•You know who Dale Mabry was and which war he served in.

•You know it's no big deal to bump into Billy Mays (Oxyclean) while grocery shopping.

•And finally ... You don't care how they do it up North.

Leonard Little

Finally, there was a lot of mail on Sunday's column about Leonard Little's experiences as a gunner on a B-24. Plenty of you shared your own stories, such as Rick Springstead of Tampa, who wrote: "My father, Aaron Springstead was in WWII and was a front turret gunner in a B-24. He was stationed in Italy and bombed the %$#&!!! out of those oil fields as well. He passed on May 19, 1999, and I dearly miss him. He was a guy didn't like to discuss his air corps days and said he fought, did his time, and moved on."

Keyword: Otto Graphs, for more of Steve Otto's musings.

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