About the time most are settling into bed next weekend, Chris Jones will be loading his smoker with mounds of pork.
When he’s not working at B & W Trailer Hitches, Jones frequently prepares smoked barbecue meals for family and friends.
His next venture will be to prepare pulled pork meals for the upcoming Walk To End Alzheimer’s in downtown Iola the morning of Oct. 8. The meals will be sold on the courthouse square at noon, with proceeds benefiting the Alzheimer’s Association.
Both ventures — his cooking and assisting the Alzheimer’s Association — are labors of love for the 39-year-old Jones.
Jones’ grandfather, Colony native Glen Carter, died in 1989 of the disease. His diagnosis came a couple of years earlier, Jones recalled.
“I was in high school and I’d never really heard of the disease,” Jones said. “My mother explained to us what was going to happen.”
The ordeal was painful, as Carter’s bouts of dementia steadily worsened before his memory of loved ones near and dear became clouded.
“It eventually got to the point that he didn’t recognize us,” Jones said, quite a departure for the tough-as-nails Carter, who made his living at the old Lehigh Cement plant in Iola. “It’s amazing how much Alzheimer’s affects more than just the person who has it. The whole family suffers.”
Jones recalled his grandfather’s life before the diagnosis.
“He was a really hard worker, and he was serious,” Jones said. “He liked to fiddle with woodwork. It was fun just being around him.”
The memory of his ailing grandfather sticks with Jones alongside more pleasant thoughts of accompanying Carter on camping trips to Elsmore Lake.
That was what spurred Jones to volunteer his services in a conversation with Mary Ann Ritter last month at the Allen County Fair. Ritter had told Jones about the upcoming Memory Walk.
He immediately offered his cooking services free of charge.
“It’s fun getting to cook and help these guys out at the same time,” he said.
GETTING THE FOOD ready for the noon meal will require 12 to 14 hours of slow cooking on Jones’ custom-made grill behind his rural Piqua farmhouse. That means starting the night before.
Jones also mixes up his own rub, a mixture of various spices and other ingredients applied to the surface of the meat before it is cooked.
His dalliance into cooking started about five years ago, “when I was just messing around,” he recalled.
He learned a few tricks from his brother-in-law, Iolan and Dudley’s Done Right Bar-B-Q owner Marshall Barnhart, and decided to customize his own smoker.
Jones took an old 350-gallon propane tank — given to him by Barnhart — and designed a firebox and warming box, constructing the unit on an 8-foot trailer.
The smoker is unlike most you’ll see, Jones noted, because of its smokestacks.
Most stacks are positioned on the opposite end of the fire and warming boxes, he said, for a simple reason: putting it too close means the heat escapes immediately before it reaches the food.
To prevent such an occurrence, Jones installed a baffling system that circulates the heat and smoke to the opposite side of the smoker before it circles back and out the smokestacks — a reverse-flow system, he explained.
He did all of the metalwork to the smoker himself, even installing a fold-out awning to protect him from rain or sun while he’s cooking.
“I’m proud of it,” he said. “A lot of people didn’t think it would work.”
Jones hasn’t given much thought to cooking professionally. He’s content just preparing meals for family and friends.
Jones started eight years as a welder at J & W. He now programs robotic devices that handle the actual welding.
“It’s a sign of the times,” he says with a wry smile. “Machines are replacing anybody nowadays.”
But a robot has yet to perfect the art of smoking, knowing when to adjust the heat to ensure the meat is just right, Jones noted.
“I’m sure that time’s coming, too,” he joked. “It really is an art. It’s a lot of fun. I enjoy it.”
THE WALK TO End Alzheimer’s kicks off at 10 a.m. on Oct. 8. Check-in and T-shirt pickup starts at 9:30. Walkers will go one or two miles, or however far is comfortable, before the noon meal.
The public is invited.
For more information on the walk, contact Trisha McClanahan, (800) 272-3900.
