In my youth in Wilmington, North Carolina, where I was born, this was the place to go for bar-b-q. It was where your grandparents took you for a special night out — grandparents who were just a generation removed from the farm, for whom the country cooking at Skinner and Daniels was an occasion for nostalgia. The sign with the pig in fancy dress seemed magical to me as a child.
The place is gone, the grandparents are gone, the sign is gone, the 23 year-old youth in the baseball cap is gone — but not really . . .
[Photograph © 1973 Langdon Clay]
Click on the image to enlarge.
Gas at 36.9 cents a gallon is gone too!
(But the barbecue was deservedly memorable.)
Jackson’s Big Oak Bar-B-Q has taken its place as the premiere bar-b-q joint in Wilmington, and it’s just as good, except for the sign.
Everything changes, except good pulled pork.
So true, Michael — and every time you eat good pulled pork, the time between then and the first time you ate it just collapses, vanishes.
Love the picture. Love the sentiment. When we would visit my grandparents in Salisbury, NC they would take us to Blackwelder’s. They are gone and so is Blackwelder’s. As a teenager in the early 70’s, I could fill up my ’65 VW for $3.
Please keep up the movie reviews.
The bar-b-q joints change, Clay, but pulled pork is eternal.